I 




LETTERS 



THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. 



LETTEES 

FROM 

THE ALLEGHAIY MOUITAIIS, 



BY 

CHAELES' ^.ANMAN, 

AUTHOR OF " A TOUR TO THE RIVER SAGUENAY," " A SUMMER IN THE WILDERNESS," 
AND " ESSAYS FOR SUMMER HOURS." 



% 



NEW- YORK : 

GEO. P. PUTNAM, 155 BROADWAY, 

1849. 






Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 18-19, by 

GEO. P. PUTNAM, 

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District 
of New-Yorit. 



TO 

JOSEPH GALES, ESQ., 

My Dear Sir, — 

I have two reasons for embellishing this little volume 
with your distinguished and honored name. In the first place, the 
material of which it is composed, was originally published in the National 
Intelligencer ; and in the second place, I desire to record the fact, that 
for many years past, in all matters appertaining to my pen you have been 
to me an invaluable counsellor and friend. 

In love and gratitude. 

Very sincerely yours, 

Charles Lanman. 

Washington, D. C, August, 1849. 



CONTENTS 



Dahlonega, 

Trip to Track Rock, . 
Valley of the Nacoochee, 
Cascade of Tuccoah, . 
The Falls of Tallulah, 
The Hunter of Tallulah, 
Trail Mountain, 
Down the Owassa, 



LETTER I. 



LETTER IL 



LETTER III. 



LETTER IV. 



LETTER V. 



LETTER VI. 



LETTER VII. 



LETTER VIII. 



Across the Mountains, 

Notes on the Little Tennesseej 

The Smoky Mountain, 



LETTER IX. 



LETTER X. 



LETTER XL 



PAGE 

9 



20 
25 
31 
36 
47 
53 
58 
65 
75 
84 



CONTENTS. 



The Cherokees of Carolina, 



Cherokee Customs, 



Cherokee Characters, 



Hickory Nut Gap, 



Down the French Broad, 



Trip to Black Mountain, , 



LETTER XII. 



LETTER XIII. 



LETTER XIV. 



LETTER XV. 



LETTER XVI. 



LETTER XVII. 



LETTER XVIII. 



The Catawba Country, 

LETTER XIX. 
The Mountains and their People, 



The Nameless Valley, 



The Valley of Virginia, 



LETTER XX. 



LETTER XXI. 



PAGE 

93 



100 
106 
115 
122 
131 
139 
151 
157 
166 



ADDENDA. 

Geology of the Alleghany Mountains, 
Soil of the Alleghany Mountains, 
Minerals of the Alleghany Mountains, 
Miscellaneous Remarks on the Alleghany Mountains, 



173 
182 
186 
192 



LETTERS 



FROM 



THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. 



LETTER I. 

Dahlonega, Georgia, April, 1848. 
The Cherokee word Dah-lon-e-ga signifies the place of 
yellow metal ; and is now applied to a small hamlet at the 
foot of the Alleghany Mountains, in Lumpkin county, 
Georgia, which is reputed to be the wealthiest gold region 
in the United States. It is recorded of De Soto and his 
followers that, in the sixteenth century, they explored this 
entire Southern country in search of gold, and unquestion- 
able evidences of their work have been discovered in va- 
rious sections of the State. Among these testimonials may 
be mentioned the remains of an old furnace, and other 
works for mining, which have been brought to light by 
recent explorations. But the attention of our own people 
was first directed to this region while yet the Cherokees 
were in possession of the land, though the digging of gold 
was not made a regular business until after they had been 
2 



10 LETTERS FROM THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. 

politely banished by the General Government. As soon as 
the State of Georgia had become the rightfulposs essor of 
the soil (according to law), much contention and excite- 
ment arose among the people as to who should have the 
best opportunities for making fortunes ; and, to settle all 
difficulties, it was decided by the State Legislature that the 
country should be surveyed and divided into lots of forty 
and one hundred and sixty acres, and distributed to the 
people by lottery. For several years subsequent to that 
period, deeds of wrong and outrage were practised to a very 
great extent by profligate adventurers who flocked to this 
El Dorado. In the year 1838, however, the Government 
established a branch Mint at this place, since which time a 
much better state of things has existed in Dahlonega. 

The appearance of this village, though not more than a 
dozen years old, is somewhat antiquated, owing to the fact 
that the houses are chiefly built of logs, and, having never 
been painted, are particularly dark and dingy, but uncom- 
monly picturesque in form and location. The population 
of the place is about five hundred. It is located upon a 
hill, and though the country around is quite uneven, having 
been deeply ravined by atmospheric agents, when viewed 
in connection with the mountains, (some ten or fifteen 
miles oflT,) which seem to hem it on three sides, presents 
the appearance of a pit to a magnificent amphitheatre. On 
approaching Dahlonega I noticed that the water-courses 
had all been mutilated with the spade and pickaxe, and that 
their waters were of a deep yellow ; and having explored 
the country since then, I find that such is the condition of 
all the streams within a circuit of many miles. Large 
brooks (and even an occasional river) have been turned 
into a new channel, and thereby deprived of their original 



LETTERS FROM THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. , 11 

beauty. And of all the hills in the vicinity of Dahlonega 
which I have visited, I have not yet seen one which is not 
actually riddled with shafts and tunnels. The soil is of a 
primitive character, quite yellowish in color, composed of 
sand and clay, and uncommonly easy to excavate with the 
spade. Heretofore the gold ore of Lumpkin county has 
been obtained from what is called the deposit beds, but the 
miners are now beginning to direct their attention to the 
veined ore, which is supposed to be very abundant in all 
directions. It is generally found in quartz and a species of 
slate stone. The gold region of Georgia, strictly speaking, 
is confined to a broad belt, which runs in a northeastern 
and southwestern direction from Dahlonega, which may be 
considered its centre. Several auriferous veins traverse the 
town, and it is common after a rain to see the inhabitants 
busily engaged in hunting for gold in the streets. That 
huge quantities are thus accumulated in these days I am 
not ready to believe, whatever may have been done in 
former years. I know not that any very remarkable spe- 
cimens of gold ore have been found in the immediate vicinity 
of Dahlonega, but an idea of the wealth of the State in 
this particular may be gathered from the fact, that several 
lumps have heretofore been found in different sections, 
which were worth from five hundred to one thousand 
dollars. More valuable specimens have been found in 
North Carolina; but while Virginia, the Carolinas, and 
Alabama have all produced a goodly amount of gold, I have 
heard it conceded that Georgia has produced the largest 
quantity and decidedly the best quality. 

And now with regard to the fortunes that have been 
made in this region. They are very few and far between. 
But, by way of illustration, I will give two or three incidents 



12 LETTERS FROM THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. 

which have come to my knowledge. In passing, however, 
I may repeat the remark made to me by an intelHgent gen- 
tleman, that the expenses of digging out the gold in this 
section of country have ever exceeded the gain by about 
one hundred per cent. Immense amounts of labor as well 
as money have been expended, and, generally speaking, the 
condition of the people has not been improved ; the very 
wealth of the country has caused the ruin of many indi- 
viduals. The following story is a matter of popular history. 
After the State Legislature had divided the Cherokee 
Purchase into lots and regularly numbered them, it was 
rumored about the country that lot No. 1052 was a great 
prize, and every body w^as on tiptoe with regard to its dis- 
tribution by the proposed lottery. At that time 1052 figured 
in the dreams of every Georgian, and those figures were 
then far more popular than the figures 54 40 have been in 
these latter days. Among the more crazy individuals who 
attended the lottery was one Mosely, who had determined 
either to draw the much talked of prize or purchase it of 
the winner, even though it should be at the cost of his 
entire property, which was quite large. The drawing took 
place, and 1052 came into the possession of a poor farmer 
named Ellison. Mosely immediately mounted his horse 
and hastened to Ellison's farm, where he found the child of 
fortune following his plough. The would-be purchaser 
made known the object of his visit, and Ellison only 
laughed at the impetuosity of his impatient friend. Ellison 
said he was not anxious to sell the lot, but if Mosely must 
have it, he might have it for .^30,000. Mosely acceded to 
the terms, and in paying for the lot sacrificed most of his 
landed and personal property. The little property which 
was left him he was compelled to employ in working his 



LETTERS FROM THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. 13 

mines ; he labored with great diligence for several years, 
but he could never make both ends meet, for his mines 
vi^ere not at all distinguished for their richness. In process 
of time he was compelled to sell 1052 for what it would 
bring, and haying squandered that remnant of his former 
wealth, he left the country for parts unknown, a veritable 
beggar. But, what is more singular than all, the present 
proprietor of 1052 is that identical man Ellison, who is 
annually realizing a handsome sum of money from the 
newly-discovered gold ore found in the bowels of his lottery 
lot. 

Another instance of good fortune, unattended with any 
alloy, is as follows : Five years ago a couple of brothers, 
who were at work upon the Georgia railroad, took it into 
their heads to visit Dahlonega and try their luck in the 
mining business. They were hardworking Irishmen, and 
understood the science of digging to perfection. They 
leased one or two lots in this vicinity, and are now reputed 
to be worth ^15,000. 

And now that it has come into my mind, I will mention 
another lottery anecdote, which was related to me by an 
old resident. By way of introduction, however, 1 ought 
here to mention that this region is famous for the number 
and size of its rattlesnakes, and that our hero had an utter 
abhorrence of the reptile. Among those who obtained 
prizes at the great drawing, before alluded to, was an indi- 
vidual from the southern part of the State, who drew a lot 
in this vicinity. In process of time he came to the north 
to explore his property, and had called at the house of a 
farmer near his land, for the purpose of obtaining a guide. 
In conversing with the farmer, he took occasion to express 
his dislike to the rattlesnake ; whereupon the farmer con- 



14 LETTERS FROM THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. 

eluded that he would attempt a speculation. Remembering 
that in going to the stranger's land he might (if he chose 
to do so) pass through an out-of-the-way ravine which 
abounded in the dreaded snake, the farmer beckoned to the 
stranger, and they took their way towards the ravine. 
After they had arrived at the spot, hardly a rod did the 
pedestrians pass without hearing the hiss of a snake or 
seeing its fiery tongue, and the stranger was as completely 
frightened as any one could possibly be by a similar cause. 
In his despair he turned to his companion and said : 

" Are snakes as plenty as this all over the country ?" 

" I can't say about that, stranger, but one of my neigh- 
bors killed about a hundred last year, and I've hearn tell 
that your land is very rich in snakes." 

" Now I ain't a going any further in this infernal region, 
and I want to know if you have a horse that you'll give 
me for my land — gold ore, snakes, and all." 

" I have, and a first-rate horse too." 

" It's a bargain." 

On the following morning, the stranger, like the hero of 
a novel, might be seen mounted on a Dahlonega steed, 
pursuing his devious pathway along a lonely road towards 
the south pole. 

Of the uncounted gold mines which are found in this 
region, the most fruitful at the present times lies about 
twenty-five miles from here, in a northerly direction, and is 
the property of Mr. Lorenzo Dow Smith. And the success 
■which has ever attended Lorenzo is worth recording. In 
a conversation that I had with him in this place, where he 
is now staying, 1 remarked that I should like to embody his 
history in a paragraph of my note-book, and he replied to 
me as follows : 



LETTERS FROM THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. 15 

" 1 was born in Vermont ; I came into this Southern 
country twenty-four years ago as a clock-pedler, where I 
drove a good business. I used to spend my summers among 
the mountains of the Cherokee country, partly for the pur- 
pose of keeping away from the fever, and partly with a view 
of living over again the days of my boyhood, which were 
spent among the Green Mountains. I made some money, 
and when the gold fever commenced I took it and went to 
speculating in gold lots, though I spent many years without 
finding lots of gold'! I associated with bear hunters, and 
explored every corner and stream of this great mountain 
land, away to the north, and have seen more glorious 
scenery than any other live man. I'm forty years old, 
unmarried, love good liquor, and go in for having fun. 
'Bout four years ago, it came into my thinking mug that 
there must be plenty of gold in the bed of Coosa creek, 
which runs into Coosa river. I traded for a lot there, and 
went to work. I found a deposit, gave up work, and went 
to leasing small sections, which are now worked by a good 
many men, and give me a decent living. I have had all 
sorts of luck in my day — good luck and bad luck. When 
I'm prosperous I always hope to be more prosperous still, 
and when I have bad luck, I always wish for worse luck — 
if it'll only come. I never allow myself to be disappointed. 
The longer I live the more anxious am I to do some good 
to my fellow-men. I've passed the blossom of my life, and 
I don't expect to live many years longer ; I haven't lived as 
I ought to have lived, but I hope it'll be well with me when 
1 come to take my final sleep. But enough. I'm going out 
to my mine on a visit to-morrow, and if you'll go with me, 
I'll show you some real Vermont trout, and mountain peaks 
which would shame the camel's hump of old Yankee land." 



16 LETTERS FROM THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. 

I did not accept Lorenzo's tempting invitation, but I 
made up my mind that he was an original. Some of the 
scenery to which he alluded I shall visit in due time. 

In former times, as before intimated, the miners of this 
region were mostly foreigners, and an abandoned race, but 
the principal deposits and veins are now worked by native 
Georgians, who are a very respectable class of people- 
Among them are many young men, who labor hard and are 
intelligent. The dangers of mining in this region are 
rather uncommon, owing principally to the lightness of the 
soil. Many of the accidents which occur, however, are 
the result of carelessness ; and the most melancholy one I 
have heard of is as follows : A man named Hunt, together 
with his son and another man named Smith, were digging 
for gold on the side of a neighboring hill. At the end of a 
tunnel, which was some thirty feet long, they excavated a 
large cave or hall, which they had neglected to support in 
the usual manner. They apprehended no danger, but were 
told by a neighbor that their conduct was imprudent. 
The elder Hunt thought he wou'd be on the safe side, and 
on a certain afternoon went into the woods to cut the 
necessary timber, while his son and Smith continued their 
labors in the cave. Night came on, and the father, having 
accomplished his task, retired to his home. On taking his 
seat at the supper table it came into his mind that his son 
and Smith were somewhat later in coming home than 
usual. He waited awhile, but becoming impatient set out 
for the cave, and, on reaching it, to his utter astonishment 
and horror, he found that the roof of the cave had fallen in. 
The alarm was given, and the whole village was assembled 
to extricate the unfortunate miners, and by the aid of 
orches the bodies w^ere recovered. The boy was found in 



LETTERS FROM THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. 17 

a running attitude, as if overtaken while endeavoring to 
escape, and the man Smith was found clinging to a single 
post, which had been vainly used to prop the ceiling of the 
cave. 

With regard to the means employed by the miners I 
have but one word to say. The deposit gold is extracted 
from the gravel by means of a simple machine called a 
rocker, which merely shifts and washes out the metal. The 
vein gold is brought to light by means of what is called a 
pounding mill, which reduces the rock to the consistency 
of sand, w^hen the ore is separated by the use of quick- 
silver. In this particular department of their business the 
Dahlonega miners confess themselves to be comparatively 
ignorant ; and what proves this to be the case is the fact, 
that some of their ore has frequently been worked over a 
second time with considerable profit. 

But the prominent attraction of Dahlonega, I have not 
yet touched upon — I allude to the Mint Establishment. 
The building itself, which is quite large, has a commanding 
appearance. It was erected in 1837, at an expense of 
$70,000, and the machinery which it contains cost #30,000. 
It is built of brick, but stuccoed so as to resemble stone. 
It gives employment to nine men, who receive for their 
services, collectively, the sum of f 12,000. The Superin- 
tendent, who also acts as Treasurer, is J. F. Cooper, (son, 
by the way, of the famous actor of that name ;) the Coiner 
is D. H. Mason, who has a very interesting cabinet of 
minerals, and the Assayer is J. L. Todd. The Dahlonega 
Branch Mint and the one located at Charlottsville, North 
Carolina, are the only ones in the United States which coin 
the gold on the very spot where it is found. The New 
Orleans Branch, as well as the mother Mint in Philadelphia, 
2* 



18 LETTERS FROM THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. 

are chiefly occupied with foreign ores. Of the two first 
mentioned, Dahlonega has thus far been the most success- 
ful, the coinage in one year having amounted to i600,000. 
At the present time, however, the business of this Mint is 
said to be on the wane. The coinage of the three branch 
Mints mentioned above is uniform with that of the mother 
Mint, and it is all systematically tested there for approval. 
It thus appears that the whole establishment is a branch of 
the Treasury Department of the United States, and under 
the supervision of the Secretary of the Treasury, and an 
account of the progress and condition of the bureau is 
annually given to Congress. 

The smallest amount of gold ore received at the Dah- 
lonega Mint by law has to be worth one hundred dollars. 
When the miner has obtained a sufficient amount, he takes 
it to the Mint and delivers it to the Superintendent. That 
officer takes an account of it, and passes it over to the 
Assayer, who fixes its value, when the miner receives the 
allotted sum of money. The operation of coining is per- 
formed by the power of steam, and may be briefly described 
by the words rolling, drawing, cutting, and stamping. 
Some of the Dahlonega gold is said to be as pure as any in 
the world, but it is commonly alloyed with silver. One or 
two specimens were shown me, which were just one half 
silver : and yet it is said that silver ore is nowhere found 
in this section of country. The value of pure gold is one 
dollar per pennyweight : and I have learned since I came 
here that every genuine American eagle is made by law to 
contain one-twentieth of silver and one-twentieth of copper. 
The word bullion, which we hear so often mentioned 
among commercial men, is a misnomer, for it is legitimately 
applied only to unwrought gold, washed grains or gold dust, 



LETTERS FROM THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. 19 

amalgamated cakes and balls, and melted bars and cakes ; 
and the word ingot is applied to a bar of gold, which may- 
be manufactured into two hundred half eagles, or one 
thousand dollars. To give a scientific account of what I 
have seen in the Dahlonega Mint would probably please my 
scientific readers, but, as I am not writing for them, they 
must excuse me. " What is writ, is writ ; would it were 
worthier !" 



LETTER II. 

Logan's Plantation, Georgia, April, 1848. 

During my stay at Dahlonega I heard a good deal said 
about a native wonder, called " Track Rock," which was 
reported to be some thirty miles off, on the northwestern 
side of the Blue Ridge Mountains. On revolving the in- 
formation in my mind, I concluded that this rock was iden- 
tical with one which had been mentioned to me by Professor 
James Jackson, of the University of Georgia, and I also 
remembered that the Professor had shown me a specimen 
of the rock he alluded to, which contained the imprint or 
impression of a human foot. My curiosity was of course 
excited, and I resolved to visit the natural or artificial won- 
der. I made the pilgrimage on foot, and what I saw and 
heard of peculiar interest on the occasion the reader will 
find recorded in the present letter. 

In accomplishing the trip to " Track Rock " and back 
again to this place I was two days. On the first day I 
walked only twenty miles, having tarried occasionally to 
take a pencil sketch or hear the birds, as they actually filled 
the air with melody. My course lay over a very uneven 
country, which was entirely uncultivated, excepting some 
half dozen quiet vales, which presented a cheerful appear- 
ance. The woods w^ere generally composed of oak and 
chestnut, and destitute to a considerable extent of under- 



LETTERS FROxM THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. 21 

growth ; the soil was composed of clay and sand, and ap- 
parently fertile ; and clear sparkling brooks intersected the 
country, and were the first that I had seen in Georgia. I 
had a number of extensive mountain views, which were 
more beautiful than imposing; and among the birds that 
attracted my attention were the red-bird, mocking-bird, 
quail, lark, poke, woodpecker, jay, king-bird, crow, blue- 
bird, and dove, together with a large black-bird, having a 
red head, (apparently of the woodpecker genus,) and ano- 
ther smaller bird, whose back was of a rich black, breast a 
bright brown, with an occasional white feather in its wing, 
which I fancied to be a species of robin. Since these were 
my companions, it may be readily imagined that " pleasantly 
the liours of Thalaba went by." 

I spent the night at a place called " Tesantee Gap," in 
the cabin of a poor farmer, where I was most hospitably 
entertained. My host had a family of nine sons and three 
daughters, not one of whom had ever been out of the wil- 
derness region of Georgia. Though the father was a very 
intelligent man by nature, he told me that he had received 
no education, and could hardly read a chapter in the Bible. 
He informed me, too, that his children were but little bet- 
ter informed, and seemed deeply to regret his inabiUty to 
give them the schooling which he felt they needed. "1 
have always desired;" said he, " that I could live on some 
public road, so that my girls might occasional!}^ see a civil- 
ized man, since it is fated that they will never meet with 
them in society." I felt sorry for the worthy man, and en- 
deavored to direct his attention from himself to the sur- 
rounding country. He told me the mountains were suscep- 
tible of cultivation even to their summits, and that the prin- 
cipal productions of his farm were corn, wheat, rye, and 



22 LETTERS FROM THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. 

potatoes; also, that the country abounded in game, such as 
deer, turkeys, and bears, and an occasional panther. Some 
of the mountains, he said, were covered with hickory, and 
a peculiar kind of oak, and that on said mountains gray 
squirrels were very abundant. The streams, he informed 
me, were well supplied with large minnows, by which I af- 
terwards ascertained he meant the brook trout. 

While conversing with my old friend, an hour or so be- 
fore sunset, we were startled by the baying of his hounds, 
and on looking up the narrow road running by his home, 
we saw a fine-looking doe coming towards us on the run. 
In its terror the poor creature made a sudden turn, and sca- 
ling a garden fence was overtaken by the dogs on a spot 
near which the wife of my host was planting seeds, when 
she immediately seized a bean-pole, and by a single blow 
deprived the doe of life. In a very few moments her hus- 
band was on the ground, and, having put his knife to the 
throat of the animal, the twain re-entered their dwelling, 
as if nothing had happened out of the common order of 
events. This was the first deer that I ever knew to be kill- 
ed by a woman. When I took occasion to compliment the 
dogs of my old friend, he said that one of them was a " pow- 
erful runner ; for he had known him to follow a deer for 
three days and three nights." Having in view my future 
rambles among the mountains, I questioned my companion 
about the snakes of this region, and, after remarking that 
:hey were " very plenty," he continued as follows : " But of 
all the snake stories you ever heard tell of, I do not believe 
you ever heard of a snake fight. I saw one, Monday was 
a week, between a black-racer and a rattlesnake. It was 
in the road, about a mile from here, and when I saw them 
the racer had the other by the back of the head, and was 



LETTERS FROM THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. 23 

coiling his body all around him, as if to squeeze him to death. 
The scuffle was pretty severe, but the racer soon killed the 
fellow with rattles, and I killed the racer. It was a queer 
scrape, and I reckon you do not often see the like in your 
country." 

I should have obtained some more mites of information 
from my host had not a broken tooth commenced aching, 
and hurried me off to bed, 

I left the habitation of my mountain friend immediately 
after breakfast the following morning, and " ne'er repassed 
that hoary threshold more." 

On the following day I passed through the Blue Ridge, 
and visited the Mecca of my pilgrimage, and was — disap- 
pointed. I was piloted to it by a neighboring mountaineer, 
who remarked, " This is Track Rock, and it's no great 
shakes after all." I found it occupying an unobtrusive 
place by the road side. It is of an irregular form and quite 
smooth, rises gradually from the ground to the height of per- 
haps three feet, and is about twenty feet long by the most 
liberal measurement. It is evidently covered with a great 
variety of tracks, including those of men, bears or dogs, and 
turkeys, together with indistinct impressions of a man's 
hand. Some of the impressions are half an inch thick, while 
many of them appear to be almost entirely effaced. The 
rock seemed to be a species of slate-colored soapstone. The 
conclusion to which I have arrived, after careful examina- 
tion, is as follows : This rock is located on what was once 
an Indian trail, and, having been used by the Cherokees as 
a resting place, it was probably their own ingenuity which 
conceived and executed the characters which now puzzle 
the philosophy of many men. The scenery about Track 
Rock is not remarkable for its grandeur, though you can 



24 LETTERS FR03I THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. 

hardly turn the eye in any direction without beholding an 
agreeable mountain landscape. In returning through Te- 
santee Gap and the valley below, 1 met with no adventures 
worth recording, and will therefore conclude my present 
epistle with a paragraph concerning the plantation where I 
am now tarrying. 

The proprietor is an intelligent and worthy gentleman, 
who is reputed to be the nabob of this region. He acquired 
a portion of his w^ealth by digging gold, but is now chiefly 
devoting himself to agriculture. He complains of the little 
advancement which the people of Northern Georgia are 
making in the arts of husbandry, and thinks that it would 
be much better for the State if the people could be persuad- 
ed to follow the plough, instead of wasting their time and 
money in searching for gold, which metal, he seems to think, 
is nearly exhausted in this section of country. Among the 
curious things which I have seen under his roof, is a small 
but choice collection of minerals, fossil remains, and Indian 
relics, belonging to his eldest son. Among the latter may 
be mentioned a heavy stone pipe, made in imitation of a 
duck, which was found in Macon county. North Carolina, 
fifteen feet below the surface; and also a small cup, similar 
to a crucible, "and made of an unknown earthy material, 
which was found in this county about nine feet below the 
surface, and directly under a large tree. But the mail 
boy's horn is blowing and I must close. 



LETTER III. 

Valley of Nacoochee, Georgia, April, 1848. 

I NOW write from the most charming valley of this south- 
ern wilderness. The river Nacoochee is a tributary of the 
Chattahooche, and, for this country, is a remarkably clear, 
cold, and picturesque stream. From the moment that it 
doffs the title of brook and receives the more dignified one 
of river, it begins to wind itself in a most wayward manner 
through a valley which is some eight or ten miles long, 
when it wanders from the vision of the ordinary traveller 
and loses itself among unexplored hills. The valley is 
perhaps a mile wide, and, as the surrounding hills are not 
lofty, it is distinguished more for its beauty than any other 
quality ; and this characteristic is greatly enhanced by the 
fact, that while the surrounding country remains in its 
original wilderness the valley itself is highly cultivated, and 
the eye is occasionally gratified by cottage scenes which 
suggest the ideas of contentment and peace. Before the 
window where 1 am now writing lies a broad meadow, 
where horses and cattle are quietly grazing, and from the 
neighboring hills comes to my ear the frequent tinkling of 
a bellj which tells me that the sheep or goats are returning 
from their morning rambles in the cool woods. 

And now for the associations connected with the valley 
of Nacoochee. Foremost among them all is a somewhat 



26 LETTERS FROM THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. 

isolated mountain, the summit of which is nearly three 
miles distant from the margin of the valley, It occupies a 
conspicuous position in all the views of the surrounding 
country, and from one point partially resembles the figure 
of a crouching bear, from which circumstance it was 
named the Yonah Mountain — yonah being the Cherokee for 
bear. The mountain bear seems to be proud of his exalted 
position, and well he may, for he is the natural guardian of 
one of the sweetest valleys in the world. Its height is 
nearly two thousand feet above the water in its vicinity. 

But the artificial memorials of Nacoochee are deserving 
of a passing notice. On the southern side of the valley, 
and about half a mile apart, are two mounds, w^hich are 
the wonder of all who see them. They are perhaps forty 
feet high, and similar in form to a half globe. One of them 
has been cultivated while the other is covered with grass and 
bushes, and surmounted, directly on the top, by a large pine 
tree. Into one of them an excavation has been made, and, 
as I am informed, pipes, tomahawks, and human bones 
were found in great numbers. Connected with these 
is an Indian legend, which I will give my readers presently. 

Many discoveries have been made in the valley of 
Nacoochee corroborating the general impression, that De 
Soto or some other adventurer in the olden times performed 
a pilgrimage through the northern part of Georgia in search 
of gold. Some twelve years ago, for example, half a dozen 
log cabins were discovered in one portion of the valley, 
lying upwards of ten feet below the surface ; and, in other 
places, something resembling a furnace, together with iron 
spoons, pieces of earthenware, and leaden plates were dis- 
interred, and are now in the possession of the resident 
inhabitants. In this connection might also be mentioned 



LETTERS FROM THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. 27 

the ruin of an old fort, which may now be seen a few miles 
north of Nacoochee valley. It is almost obliterated from 
the face of the earth, but its various ramparts can be easily 
traced by the careful observer. Its purpose we can easily 
divine, but with regard to its history even the Indians are 
entirely ignorant. 

Connected with the valley of Nacoochee are the follow- 
ing legends, which weVe related to me by the " oldest inhab- 
itant" of this region. 

In this valley, in the olden times, resided Kostoyeak, or 
the " Sharp Shooter," a chief of the Cherokee nation. He 
was renowned for his bravery and cunning, and among his 
bitterest enemies was one Chonesta,OT the "Black Dog," a 
chief of the Tennessees. In those days there was a Yemas- 
see maiden residing in the low country, who was renowned 
for her beauty in all the land, and she numbered among her 
many suitors the famous Kostoyeak and four other warriors, 
upon each of whom she was pleased to smile ; whereupon 
she discarded all the others, and among them the Tennessee 
chief Chonesta. On returning to his own country he 
breathed revenge against Kostoyeak, and threatened that 
if he succeeded to the hand of the Yemassee beauty the 
Cherokee's tribe should be speedily exterminated. The 
merits of the four rival chiefs was equal, and the Yemassee 
chief could not decide upon which to bestow his daughter. 
Kostoyeak was her favorite, and in order to secure a mar- 
riage with him, she proposed to her father that she should 
accept that warrior who could discover where the waters 
of the Savannah and those of the Tennessee took their rise 
among the mountains. Supposing that no such place 
existed the father gave his consent, and the great hunt was 
commenced. At the end of the first noon Kostoyeak 



28 LETTERS FROM THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. 

returned with the intelligence that he had found a gorge — 
now called the gap of the Blue Ridge as well as Rabun 
Gap — where the two great rivers " shake hands and com- 
mence their several journeys, each singing a song of glad- 
ness and freedom." In process of time the Yemassee chief 
was convinced that Kostoyeak told a true story, and he 
was, therefore, married to the lons^-loved maiden of his 
choice. 

Enraged at these events, Chonesta assembled his war- 
riors, and made war upon the fortunate Cherokee and his 
w^hole tribe. The Great Spirit was the friend of Kostoyeak, 
and he was triumphant. He slew Chonesta with his own 
hand and destroyed his bravest warriors, and finally became 
the possessor of half the entire Tennessee valley. 

Years rolled on and Kostoyeak as well as his wife were 
numbered among the dead. They were buried with every 
Indian honor in the valley of Nacoochee, and, to perpet- 
uate their many virtues in after years, their several nations 
erected over their remains the mounds which now adorn a 
portion of the valley where they lived. 

The other legend to which I have alluded is as follows : 
The meaning of the Indian word Nacoochee is the " Even- 
ing Star," and was applied to a Cherokee girl of the same 
name. She was distinguished for her beauty and a strange 
attachment for the flowers and the birds of her native 
valley. She died in her fifteenth summer, and at the twi- 
light hour of a summer day. On the evening following her 
burial a newly-born star made its appearance in the sky, 
and all her kindred cherished the belief that she whom they 
had thought as lovely as the star, had now become the 
brightest of the whole array which looked down upon the 
world, and so she has ever been remembered (as well as the 



LETTERS FROM THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. 29 

valley where she lived) as Na-coo-chee ; or the Evening 
Star. The spot of earth where the maiden is said to have 
been buried is now covered with flowers, and the waters 
of the beautiful Nacoochee seem to be murmuring a per- 
petual song in memory of the departed. 

That my letter may leave a permanent impression upon 
my reader's mind, I will append to it the following poem 
written by a Georgia poet, Henry R. Jackson, Esq. 

PCount Yonnfj— l^alc of Wacoodjec. 

Before me, as I stand, his broad, round head 

Mount YoNAH lifts the neighboring hills above, 
While, at his foot, all pleasantly is spread 

Nacoochee's vale, sweet as a dream of love. 

Cradle of Peace ! mild, gentle as the dove 
Whose tender accents from yon woodlands swell, 

Must she have been who thus has interwove 
Her name with thee, and thy soft, holy spell, 
And all of peace which on this troubled globe may dwell ! 

Nacoochee — in tradition, thy sweet queen — 

Has vanished with her maidens : not again 
Along thy meadows shall their forms be seen ; 

The mountain echoes catch no more the strain 

Of their wild Indian lays at evening's wane ; 
No more, where rumbling branches interwine. 

They pluck the jasmine flowers, or break the cane 
Beside the marshy stream, or from the vine 
Shake down, in purple showers, the luscious muscadine. 

Yet round thee hangs the same sweet spirit still ! 

Thou art among these hills a sacred spot, 
As if shut out from all the clouds of ill 

That gloom so darkly o'er the human lot. 

On thy green breast the world I quite forgot — 



30 LETTERS FROM THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. 

Its stern contentions — its dark grief and care, 

And I breathed freeer, deeper, and blushed not 
At old emotions long, long stifled there, 
Which sprang once more to life in thy calm, loving air. 

I saw the last bright gleam of sunset play 

On Yonah's lofty head : all quiet grew 
Thy bosom, which beneath the shadows lay 

Of the surrounding mountains ; deeper blue 

Fell on their mighty summits ; evening threw 
Her veil o'er all, and on her azure brow 

A bright star shone ; a trusting form I drew 
Yet closer to my side ; above, below. 
Within were peace and hope life may not often know ! 

Thou loveliest of earth's valleys ! fare thee well! 

Nor is the parting pangless to my soul. 
Youth, hope and happiness with thee shall dwell, 

UnsuUied Nature hold o'er thee control. 

And years still leave thee beauteous as they roll. 
Oh ! I could linger with thee ! yet this spell 

Must break, e'en as upon my heart it stole, 
And found a weakness there I may not tell — 
An anxious life, a troubled future claim me ! fare thee well ! 



LETTER IV. 

Clarksville, Georgia, April, 1848, 

The little village where I am now staying is decidedly 
the most interesting in the northern part of Georgia. 
There is nothing particularly fine about its buildings, and 
it only contains some three hundred inhabitants, but it 
commands a magnificent prospect of two ranges of the Al- 
leghany Mountains. It is remarkable for the healthfulness 
of its climate, and is the summer resort of between forty 
and fifty of the most wealthy and accomplished families of 
Georgia and South Carolina, a number of whom have 
erected and are erecting elegant country seats in its imme- 
diate vicinity. It contains a mineral spring, which is said 
to have saved the lives of many individuals ; and it patron- 
izes two hotels, where the tourist may obtain all the luxuries 
of the North as well as the' South, and in a style which 
must gratify and astonish him, when he remembers that he 
has reached the end of carriage travelling, and is on the 
confines of an almost impassable wilderness. The water- 
power in its neighborhood would supply at least fifty facto- 
ries, and it yields more than a sufficient quantity of iron ore 
to furnish constant employment to an extensive smelting 
establishment and furnace. Its soil is of the best quality, 
and yields in great abundance every variety of produce pe- 
culiar to a temperate climate. But the chief attraction of 



32 LETTERS FROM THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. 

Clarksville is, that it is the centre of some of the most roman- 
tic scenery in the world, and the stopping-place for all 
those who visit Nacoochee Valley, Yonah Mountain, the 
Tuccoah Cascade, Tallulah Falls, and Tray Mountain. 
The first two curiosities alluded to have already been 
described, and I now purpose to introduce to my reader the 
peculiar and beautiful Cascade of Tuccoah, reserving the 
two other marvels of nature for future letters. 

The Tuccoah is a very small stream — a mere brooklet, 
and for the most part is not at all distinguished for any 
other quality than those belonging to a thousand other 
sparkling streams of this region ; but, in its oceanward 
course, it performs one leap w^hich has given it a reputation. 
On account of this leap the aborigines christened it with 
the name of Tuccoah, or the beautiful. To see this cas- 
cade, in your mind's eye, (and I here partly quote the lan- 
guage of one who could fully appreciate its beauty,) imagine 
a sheer precipice of gray and rugged rock, one hundred and 
eighty-six feet high, with a little quiet lake at its base, sur- 
rounded by sloping masses of granite and tall shadowy trees. 
From the overhanging lips of this cliff, aloft, between your 
upturned eyes and the sky comes a softly flowing stream. 
After making a joyous leap it breaks into a shower of heavy 
spray, and scatters its drops more and more widely and 
minute, until, in little more than a drizzling mist, it scatters 
the smooth, moss-covered stones lying immediately beneath. 
All the way up the sides of this precipice cling, wherever 
space is aflbrded, little tufts of moss and delicate vines and 
creepers, contrasting beautifully with the solid granite. 
There is no stunning noise of falling waters, but only a 
dripping, pattering, plashing in the lake ; a murmuring 
sound, which must be very grateful during the noontide heat 



LETTERS FROM THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. 33 

of a summer day. There comes also a soft cool breeze, 
constantly from the foot of the precipice, caused by the 
falling shower, and this ripples the surface of the pool and 
gently agitates the leaves around and overhead. 

Connected w^ith the Cascade of Tuccoah is an Indian tra- 
dition, which was related to me by a gentleman connected 
with the Georgia University, who obtained it from a Cher- 
okee Chief The occurrence is said to be well authenti- 
cated, and runneth in this wise : A short time previous to 
the Revolution, the Cherokees were waging a very bitter 
warfare against a powerful tribe of Indians who dwelt in 
the country of the Potomac. During one of their pitched 
battles, it so happened that the Cherokees made captive 
about a dozen of their enemies, whom they brought into 
their own country safely bound. Their intention was to 
sacrifice the prisoners ; but, as they wished the ceremony 
to be particularly imposing, on account of the fame of the 
captives, it was resolved to postpone the sacrifice until the 
following moon. In the meantime the Cherokee braves 
went forth to battle again, while the prisoners, now more 
securely bound than ever, were left in a large wigwam near 
Tuccoah, in the especial charge of an old woman, who was 
noted for her savage patriotism. 

Day followed day, and, as the unfortunate enemies lay 
in the lodge of the old w^oman, she dealt out to them a 
scanty supply of food and water. They besought the wo- 
man to release them, and oftered her the most valuable of 
Indian bribes, but she held her tongue and remained faith- 
ful to her trust. It was now the morning of a pleasant 
day, when an Indian boy called at the door of the old wo- 
man's lodge and told her that he had seen a party of their 
enemies in a neighboring valley, and he thought it probable 
3 



34 LETTERS FROM THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. 

that they had come to rescue their fellows. The woman 
heard this intelligence in silence, but bit her lip in anger 
and defiance. On re-entering her lodge another appeal for 
freedom was made, and the prisoners were delighted to see 
a smile playing upon the countenance of their keeper. She 
told them she had relented, and was willing to let them es- 
cape their promised doom, but it must be on certain condi- 
tions. They were first to give into her hands all their per- 
sonal effects, which she would bury under the lodge. She 
did not wish to be discovered, and they must therefore de- 
part at the dead of night. She did not wish them to 
know how to find their way back to the lodge, whence 
they might see fit to take away her reward, and she there- 
fore desired that they should be blindfolded, and consent to 
her leading them about two miles through a thick wood, 
into an open country, when she would release them. The 
prisoners gladly consented ; and, while they were suflfering 
themselves to be stripped of their robes and weapons, a 
heavy cloud canopied the sky, as if heralding a storm. At 
the hour of midnight loud peals of thunder bellowed through 
the firmament, and terribly flashed the lightning. The 
night and the contemplated deed were admirably suited, 
thought the warriors, and so thought the woman also. She 
placed leathern bands around the eyes of her captives ; 
and, having severed the thongs which confined their feet, 
bade them follow whither she might lead, '^rhey were con- 
nected with each other by iron withes ; and so the woman 
led them to their promised freedom. Intricate, and wind- 
ing, and tedious was the way ; but not a murmur was ut- 
tered, nor a word spoken. Now has the strange procession 
reached a level spot of earth, and the men step proudly on 
their way. Now have they reached the precipice of Tuc- 



LETTERS FROM THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. 35 

coah ; and, as the woman walks to the very edge, she 
makes a sudden wheel, and, one after the other, are the poor 
captives launched into the abyss below. A loud wail of 
triumph echoes through the air from the lips of the woman- 
fiend, and, with the groans of the dying in her ears, and 
the very lightning in her path, does she retrace her steps to 
her lodge to seek repose, and then on the morrow to pro- 
claim her cruel and unnatural deed. 

In the bottom of the Tuccoah pool may now be gathered 
small fragments of a white material, resembling soap-stone, 
and many people allege that these are the remains of the 
Indian captives who perished at the foot of the precipice. 



LETTER V. 

Tallulah Falls, Georgia, April, 1848. 

As a natural curiosity the Fall?, of Tallulah are on a 
par with the River Saguenay and the Falls of Niagara. 
They had been described to me in the most glowing and 
enthusiastic manner, and yet the reality far exceeds the 
scene which I had conceived. They have filled me with 
astonishment, and created a feeling strong enough almost 
to induce me to remain within hearing of their roar for- 
ever. 

The Cherokee word Tallulah or Tarrurah signifies the 
terrible, and was originally applied to the river of that name 
on account of its fearful falls. This river rises among the 
Alleghany mountains, and is a tributary of the Savannah. 
Its entire course lies through a mountain land, and in every 
particular it is a mountain stream, narrow, deep, clear, cold, 
and subject to every variety of mood. During the first 
half of its career it winds among the hills as if in uneasy 
joy, and then for several miles it wears a placid appearance, 
and you can scarcely hear the murmur of its waters. Soon, 
tiring of this peaceful course, however, it narrows itself 
for an approaching contest, and runs through a chasm 
whose walls, about four miles in length, are for the most 
part perpendicular ; and, after making within the space of 
half a mile a number of leaps as the chasm deepens, it 



LETTERS FROM THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. 37 

settles into a turbulent and angry mood, and so continues 
for a mile and a half further, until it leaves the chasm and 
regains its wonted character. The Falls of Tallulah, 
properly speaking, are five in number, and have been chris- 
tened Lodora, Tempesta, Oceana, Honcon, and the Serpen- 
tine. Their several heights are said to be forty-five feet, 
one hundred, one hundred and twenty, fifty, and thirty feet, 
making, in connection with the accompanying rapids, a 
descent of at least four hundred feet within the space of 
half a mile. At this point the stream is particularly wind- 
ing, and the cliffs of solid granite on either side, which are 
perpendicular, vary in height from six hundred to nine hun- 
dred feet, while the mountains which back the chffs reach 
an elevation of perhaps fifteen hundred feet. Many of the 
pools are very large and very deep, and the walls and rocks 
in their immediate vicinity are always green with the most 
luxuriant of mosses. The vegetation of the whole chasm is 
in fact particularly rich and varied ; for you may here find 
not only the pine, but specimens of every variety of the 
more tender trees, together with lichens, and vines, and 
flowers, which would keep the botanist employed for half a 
century. Up to the present time, only four paths have 
been discovered leading to the margin of the water, and to 
make either of these descents requires much of the nerve 
and courage of the samphire-gatherer. Through this 
immense gorge a strong wind is ever blowing, and the 
sunlight never falls upon the cataracts without forming 
beautiful rainbows, which contrast strangely with the sur- 
rounding gloom and horror ; and the roar of the waterfalls, 
eternally ascending to the sky, comes to the ear like the 
voice of God calling upon man to wonder and admire. 
Of the more peculiar features which I have met with in 



38 LETTERS FROM THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. 

the Tallulah chasm the following are the only ones which 
have yet been christened, viz. : the Devil's Pulpit, the Devil's 
Dwelling, the Eagle's Nest, the Deer Leap, Hawthorn's 
Pool, and Hanck's Sliding Place. 

. The Devils Pulpit is a double-headed and exceedingly 
ragged cliff, which actually hangs over the ravine, and esti- 
mated to be over six hundred feet high. While standing 
upon the brow of this precipice I saw a number of buzzards 
sitting upon the rocks below, and appearing like a flock of 
blackbirds. While looking at them the thought came into 
my mind that I would startle them from their fancied secu- 
rity by throwing a stone among them. I did throw the 
stone, and with all my might too, but, instead of going 
across the ravine, as I supposed it would, it fell out of my 
sight, and apparently at the very base of the cliff upon 
which I was standing. This little incident gave me a 
realizing sense of the immense width and depth of the 
chasm. While upon this cliff also, with my arms clasped 
around a small pine tree, an eagle came sailing up the 
chasm in mid air, and, as he cast his eye upward at my in- 
significant form, he uttered a loud shriek as if in anger at 
my temerity, and continued on his way, swooping above 
the spray of the waterfalls. 

The Devil's Dwelling is a cave of some twenty feet in 
depth, which occupies a conspicuous place near the summit 
of a precipice overlooking the Honcon Fall. Near its out- 
let is a singular rock, which resembles (from the opposite 
side of the gorge) the figure of a woman in a sitting posture* 
who is said to be the wife or better-half of the devil. I do 
not believe this story, and cannot therefore endorse the pre- 
vailing opinion. 

The Eagle's Nest is a rock which projects from the 



LETTERS FROM THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. 39 

brow of a cliff reputed to be seven hundred feet high, and 
perpendicular. The finest view of this point is from the 
margin of the water, where it is grand beyond compare. 
To describe it wdth the pen were utterly impossible, but it 
was just such a scene as would have delighted the lamented 
Cole, and by a kindred genius alone can it ever be placed 
on the canvas. 

The Deer Leap is the highest cliff in the whole chasm, 
measuring about nine hundred feet, and differs from its fel- 
lows in two particulars. From summit to bottom it is al- 
most without a fissure or an evergreen, and remarkably 
smooth ; and over it, in the most beautiful manner imagin- 
able, tumbles a tiny stream, which scatters upon the rocks 
below with infinite prodigahty ; the purest of diamonds and 
pearls appearing to be woven into wreaths of foam. It ob- 
tained its name from the circumstance that a deer was 
once pursued to this point by a hound, and in its terror, 
cleared a pathway through the air, and perished in the 
depths below. 

Hawthorn s Pool derives its name from the fact that in 
its apparently soundless waters a young and accomplished 
English clergyman lost his life while bathing ; and Hanck's 
Sliding Place is so called because a native of this region 
once slipped ofi' of the rock into a sheet of foam, but by the 
kindness of Providence he was rescued from his perilous 
situation not much injured, but immensely frightened. 

But of all the scenes which I have been privileged to 
enjoy in the Tallulah chasm, the most glorious and superb 
was witnessed in the night time. For several days pre- 
vious to my coming here the woods had been on fire, and I 
was constantly on the watch for a night picture of a burn- 
ing forest. On one occasion, as I was about retiring, I saw 



40 LETTERS FROM THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. 

a lio^ht in the direction of the Falls, and concluded that I 
would take a walk to the Devil's Pulpit, which was distant 
from my tarrying place some hundred and fifty yards. 
Soon as 1 reached there I felt convinced that the fire would 
soon be in plain view, for I was on the western side of the 
gorge, and the wind was blowing from the eastward In a 
very few moments my anticipations were realized, for I 
saw the flame licking up the dead leaves which covered the 
ground, and also stealing up the trunk of every dry tree in 
its path. A warm current of air was now wafted to my 
cheek by the breeze, and I discovered with intense satisfac- 
tion that an immense dead pine which hung over the oppo- 
site precipice (and whose dark form I had noticed distinctly 
pictured against the crimson background) had been reached 
by the flame, and in another moment it was entirely in a 
blaze. The excitement which now took possession of my 
mind was absolutely painful ; and, as I threw my arms 
around a small tree, and peered into the horrible chasm, my 
whole frame shook with an indescribable emotion. The 
magnificent torch directly in front of me did not seem to 
have any effect upon the surrounding darkness, but threw 
a ruddy and death-like glow upon every object in the bot- 
tom of the gorge. A flock of vultures which were roosting 
far down in the ravine were frightened out of their sleep, 
and in their dismay, as they attempted to rise, flew against 
the cliflfs and amongst the trees, until they finally disap- 
peared ; and a number of bats and other winged creatures 
were winnowing their way in every direction. The deep 
black pools beneath were enveloped in a more intense 
blackness, while the foam and spray of a neighboring fall 
were made a thousand-fold more beautiful than before. 
The vines, and lichens, and mosses seemed to cling more 



LETTERS FROM THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. 41 

closely than usual to their parent rocks ; and when an oc- 
casional ember fell from its great height far down, and still 
further down into the abyss below, it made me dizzy and I 
retreated from my commanding position. In less than 
twenty minutes from that time the fire was exhausted, and 
the pall of night had settled upon the lately so brilliant 
chasm, and no vestige of the truly marvellous scene re- 
mained but an occasional wreath of smoke fading away 
into the upper air. 

During my stay at the Falls of Tallulah I made every 
effort to obtain an Indian legend or two connected with 
them, and it was my good fortune to hear one which has 
never yet been printed. It was originally obtained by the 
white man who first discovered the Falls from the Chero- 
kees, who lived in this region at the time. It is in sub- 
stance as follows : Many generations ago it so happened 
that several famous hunters, who had wandered from the 
West towards what is now the Savannah river, in search 
of game, never returned to their camping grounds. In pro- 
cess of time the curiosity as well as the fears of the nation 
were excited, and an effort was made to ascertain the cause 
of their singular disappearance. Whereupon a party of 
medicine-men were deputed to make a pilgrimage towards 
the great river. They were absent a whole moon, and, on 
returning to their friends, they reported that they had dis- 
covered a dreadful fissure in an unknown part of the coun- 
try, through which a mountain torrent took its way with a 
deafening noise. They said that it was an exceedingly wild 
place, and that its inhabitants were a species of little men 
and women, who dwelt in the crevices of the rocks and in 
the grottoes under the waterfalls. They had attempted by 
every artifice in their power to hold a council with the lit- 
3* 



42 LETTERS FROM THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. 

tie people, but all in vain ; and, from the shrieks they fre- 
quently uttered, the medicine-men knew that they were the 
enemies of the Indian race ; and, therefore, it was concluded 
in the nation at large that the long lost hunters had been 
decoyed to their death in the dreadful gorge which they 
called Tallulah. In view of this little legend, it is worthy 
of remark that the Cherokee nation, previous to their de- 
parture for the distant West, always avoided the Falls of 
Tallulah, and were seldom found hunting or fishing in their 
vicmity. 

P. S. Since writing the above, I have met with another 
local poem by Henry R. Jackson, Esq., which contains so 
much of the true spirit of poetry, that 1 cannot refrain from 
giving it to my readers. It was inspired by the roar of 
Tallulah, and is as follows : — 



2Callula|). 

But hark ! beneath yon hoary precipice, 

The rush of mightier waters, as they pour 
In foaming torrents through the dark abyss 

Which echoes back the thunders of their roar. 

Approach the frightful gorge ! and gazing o'er, 
What mad emotions through their bosoms thrill ! 

Hast ever seen so dread a sight before ? 
Tallulah ! by that name we hail thee still, 
And own that thou art rightly called the terrible 

In vain o'er thee shall glow with wild delight, 
The painter's eye, and voiceless still shall be 

The poet's tongue, who from this giddy height 
Shall kindle in thine awful minstrelsy ! 
Thou art too mighty in thy grandeur — we 



LETTERS FROM THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. 43 

Too weak to give fit utterance to the soul ! 

Thy billows mock us with their tempest glee, 
As thundering on, while countless ages roll, 
Thou scornest man's applause alike with man's control ! 

Yet standing here where mountain eagles soar, 

Among these toppling crags, to plant their nest, 
I catch an inspiration from thy roar. 

Which will not let my spirit be at rest. 

I cast me down upon the massive breast 
Of this huge rock, that lifts to meet the blast, 

Far, far above thy foam, his granite crest, 
And eager thoughts come gathering thick and fast, 
The voices of the future blending with the past ! 

I gaze across the yawning gorge and seem 
Once more to see upon yon heights that rear 

Their summits up to catch the sunset gleam, 
The red man of the wilderness appear, 
With bounding step, and bosom broad and bare, 

And painted face, and figure litlie and tall. 
Wild as surrounding nature ; and I hear 

From yonder precipice his whoop and call. 

That mingle fiercely with the roaring water-fall ! 

But lo ! he pauses, for he sees ihee now. 

Dread cataract ! — he stands entranced — his yell 
Is hushed ; appalled he looks where far below. 

Thy waters boil with a tumultuous swell. 

Thou glorious orator of Nature ! well 
May his rude bosom own the majesty 

Of thy dread eloquence ; he hears the knell 
Of human things — he bends the suppliant knee, 
To the Great Spirit of the terrible in thee. 

Once more I look ! — the dusky form has gone — 
Passed with the onward course of time, and passed 



44 LETTERS FROM THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. 

To come no more ; perhaps a king upon 

Yon height he sleeps, rocked by the winter's blast 
In couch all regal, where dead hands have cast 

His glorious bones the nearest to the stars, 
And left him there to rest in peace at last. 

Forgetful of his glory, scalps and scars — 

The unsung Hector of a hundred bloody wars. 

Again I gaze, and other forms appear, 

Of milder mien and far more gentle grace, 
And softer tones are falling on my ear ; 

And yet, methinks, less kindred wdth the place. 

Another, and (it may be) nobler race 
Have made these hills their own, and they draw near 

With kindling spirits, yet with cautious pace ; 
Youth, age and wisdom, with his brow of care, 
And joyous beauty, that has never wept a tear. 

And through the lapse of many ages they 

Shall come ; year after year to thee shall bring 
The searcher alter knov/ledge, and the gay 

Who sport through life as though a morn in spring ; 

And tears shall fall, and the light laugh shall ring 
Beside thee, and the lonely heart shall seek 

Relief from its eternal sorrowing—^ 
And all shall feel upon their spirits break, 
Thoughts wonderful ; emotions which they may not speak. 

I turn towards the coming time and hear 

The voice of a great people which shall dwell 
Among these mountains, free as their own air, 

And chainless as thy current's ceaseless swell. 

Behold them growing into power ! They fell 
The old primeval forests which have stood 

For ages in the valleys ; they dispel 
The shades from Nature's face, and thickly strewed, 
Their villages spring up amid the solitude. 



LETTERS FROM THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. 45 

I look again, and I behold them not ; 

Silence resumes once more her ancient reign. 
A solitary form stands on the spot, 

Where mine had stood ; around on hill and plain, 

The palace crumbles, and the gorgeous fane 
Sinks into dust ; he weeps above the tomb 

Of human pride, and feels that it is vain ; 
Yet shall thy voice arise amid the gloom 
Of silent hearths and cities, scornful of their doom. 

I look once more : behold 'tis changed again. 

And yet 'tis unchanged ! Earth has upward shot 
Her twigs from naked mountain, vale and plain ; 

How rankly have they grown above the spot, 

Where cities crnmble, and their builders rot ! 
Again the forest moans beneath the blast, 

The eagle finds on mountain, clifFand grot, 
Once more his eyrie undisturbed ; the vast 
And melancholy wilderness o'er all is cast. 

And lo ! upon the spot where I had stood, 

A second form — how like to mine ! has ta'en 
His lonely place, and hears the solitude 

Return thy stunning anthem back again, 

Like distant roarings of some mighty main ; 
The earth around lies in her primal dress : 

And far above, just entering on her wane. 
The full round moon with not a ray the less. 
Looks calmly forth as now, upon the wilderness. 

He treads the earth, nor dreams that he has trod 

On human dust. The oak that o'er him waves 
So proudly, tells him not how, through the sod. 

Its roots sucked nourishment from human graves. 

The renovated stream its channel laves 
Beside his feet as freshly as of old ; 

Its moist bank not a lingering record saves 
Of those who dried its sources ; flowers unfold 
Their tints, nor tell how they have fed on human mould. 



46 LETTERS FROM THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. 

Now from the broad expanse his eye surveys, 

Ambition ! summon forth thy votaries ! 
Whose eagle vision drank the noontide blaze, 

Whose eagle pinions fanned the highest breeze. 

Power ! thou that gloried'st in the bending knees 
Of millions of God's humbled creatures — seek 

Thy favorites now, who strode through bloody seas 
To thrones, it may be, and upon the weak, 
Bade human passion all her vengeance wreak ! 

Bid them arise ! stand forth ! each in his place 

From the broad waste, to greet the gazer's sight 
With brigh^ insignia, which in life did grace 

The brow, or give the bounding heart delight. 

Arise ! each to the stature of his might. 
And tell of how he lived and how he died ! 

Say ! comes a single voice upon the night ? 
Rises a single form above the common tide ? 
Ambition ! Glory ! Power ! oh ! where do ye abide ? 

Speak, Suifering ! call thy pallid sons ! 

And Poverty ! thy millions marshal forth ! 
Thy starving millions, with their rags and groans, 

Who knew hell's tortures on God's smiling earth ! 

Name o'er thy thoughtless legions, reckless Mirth ? 
And Disappointment ! with thy sable brow. 

Summon thy slaves of great or little worth ! 
And Suicide ! thou child of darkest woe. 
Speak to thy bleeding victims, thou, who laid'st them low ! 

Behold they come not ! Still he stands alone — 

He gazes upward to the midnight sky, 
The same dim vault where orbs as brightly shone, 

When watched by the Chaldean's wakeful eye, 

As now they shine ; his dreamings are of high 
And holy things ; to him the earth is young — 

The heavens are young ; in joyous infancy 
A nation buds around — to whom belong 
No past, no memories, but a future bright and strong. 



LETTER VI. 

Tallulah Falls, Geokgia, April, 1848. 

The subject of my present letter is Adam Vandever, 
" the Hunter of Tallulah." His fame reached my ears 
soon after arriving at this place, and, having obtained a 
guide, I paid him a visit at his residence, which is planted 
directly at the mouth of the Tallulah chasm. He lives in 
a log-cabin, occupying the centre of a small valley, through 
which the Tallulah river winds its wayward course. It is 
completely hemmed in on all sides by wild and abrupt 
mountains, and one of the most romantic and beautiful 
nooks imaginable. Vandever is about sixty years of age, 
small in stature, has a regular built weasel face, a small 
gray eye, and wears a long white beard. He was born in 
South Carolina, spent his early manhood in the wilds of 
Kentucky, and the last thirty years of his life in the wilder- 
ness of Georgia. By way of a frolic, he took a part in the 
Creek war, and is said to have killed more Indians than any 
other white man in the army. In the battle of Ottassee 
alone, he is reported to have sent his rifle-ball through the 
hearts of twenty poor heathen, merely because they had an 
undying passion for their native hills, which they could not 
bear to leave for an unknown wilderness. But Vandever 
aimed his rifle at the command of his country, and of course 
the charge of cold-blooded butchery does not rest upon his 



48 LETTERS FROM THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. 

head. He is now living with his third wife, and claims to 
be the father of over thirty children, only five of whom, 
however, are living under his roof, the remainder being 
dead or scattered over the world. During the summer 
months he tills, with his own hand, the few acres of land 
which constitute his domain. His live stock consists of a 
mule and some half dozen of goats, together with a number 
of dogs. 

On inquiring into his forest life, he gave me, among 
others, the following particulars. When the hunting season 
commences, early in November, he supplies himself with 
every variety of shooting materials, steel-traps, and a com- 
fortable stock of provisions, and, placing them upon his mule, 
starts for some wild region among the mountains, where he 
remains until the following spring. The shanty which he 
occupies during this season is of the rudest character, with 
one side always open, as he tells me, for the purpose of hav- 
ing an abundance of fresh air. In killing wild animals he 
pursues but two methods, called " fire-lighting " and " still- 
hunting." His favorite game is the deer, but he is not par- 
ticular, and secures the fur of every four-legged creature 
which may happen to cross his path. The largest number 
of skins that he ever brought home at one time was six 
hundred, among which were those of the bear, the black 
and gray wolf, the panther, the wild-cat, the fox, the coon, 
and some dozen other varieties. He computes the entire 
number of deer that he has killed in his lifetime at four 
thousand. When spring arrives, and he purposes to return 
to his valley home, he packs his furs upon his old mule, 
and, seating himself upon the pile of plunder, makes a bee- 
line out of the wilderness. And by those who have seen 
him in this homeward-bound condition, I am told that he 



LETTERS FROM THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. 49 

presents one of the most curious and romantic pictures 
imaginable. While among the mountains, his beast subsists 
upon whatever it may happen to glean in its forest rambles, 
and, when the first supply of his own provisions is exhausted, 
he usually contents himself with wild game, which he is 
often compelled to devour unaccompanied with bread or 
salt. His mule is the smallest and most miserable looking 
creature of the kind that I ever saw, and glories in the 
singular name of " The Devil and Tom Walker." When 
Vandever informed me of this fact, which he did with a 
self-satisfied air, I told him that the first portion of the 
mule's name was more applicable to himself than to the 
dumb beast ; whereupon he " grinned horribly a ghastly 
smile," as if I had paid him a compliment. Old Vandever 
is- an illiterate man, and when 1 asked him to give me his 
opinion of President Polk, he replied : " I never seed the 
Governor of this State ; for, when he came to this country 
some years ago, I was off on 'tother side of the ridge, shoot- 
ing deer. 1 voted for the General, and that's all I know 
about him." Very well ! and this, thought I, is one of the 
freemen of our land, who help to elect our rulers ! 

On questioning my hunter friend with regard to some 
of his adventures, he commenced a rigmarole narrative, 
which would have lasted a whole month had 1 not politely 
requested him to keep his mouth closed while I took a por- 
trait of him in pencil. His stories all bore a strong family 
likeness, but were evidently to be relied on, and proved 
conclusively that the man knew not what it was to fear. 

As specimens of the whole, I will outline a few. On 
one occasion he came up to a large gray wolf, into whose 
head he discharged a ball. The animal did not drop, but 
made its way into an adjoining cavern and disappeared. 



50 LETTERS FROM THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. 

Vandever waited awhile at the opening, and as he could 
not see or hear his game, he concluded that it had ceased 
to breathe, whereupon he fell upon his hands and knees, 
and entered the cave. On reaching the bottom, he found the 
wolf alive, when a "clinch fight" ensued, and the hunter's 
knife completely severed the heart of the animal. On drag- 
ging out the dead wolf into the sunlight, it was found that 
his low^er jaw had been broken, which was probably the rea- 
son why- he had not succeeded in destroying the hunter. 

At one time, when he was out of ammunition, his dogs fell 
upon a large bear, and it so happened that the latter got 
one of the former in his power, and was about to squeeze 
it to death. This was a sight the hunter could not endure, 
so he unsheathed his huge hunting-knife and assaulted the 
black monster. The bear tore off nearly every rag of his 
clothing, and in making his first plunge with the knife he 
completely cut off two of his own fingers instead of injur- 
ing the bear. He was now in a perfect frenzy of pain 
and rage, and in making another effort succeeded to his 
satisfaction, and gained the victory. That bear weighed 
three hundred and fifty pounds. 

On another occasion he had fired at a large buck near 
the brow of a precipice some thirty feet high, whi(ih hangs 
over one of the pools in the Tallulah river. On seeing the 
buck drop, he took it for granted that he was about to die, 
when he approached the animal for the purpose of cutting 
its throat. To his great surprise, however, the buck sud- 
denly sprung to his feet and made a tremendous rush at 
the hunter with a view of throwing him off the ledge. But 
what was more remarkable, the animal succeeded in its ef- 
fort, though not until Vandever had obtained a fair hold of 
the buck's antlers, when the twain performed a somerset 



LETTERS FROM THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. 51 

into the pool below. The buck made its escape, and Van- 
dever was not seriously injured in any particular. About 
a month subsequent to that time he killed a buck, which 
had a bullet wound in the lower part of its neck, whereupon 
he concluded that he had finally triumphed over the animal 
which had given him the unexpected ducking. 

But the most remarkable escape which old Vandever 
ever experienced happened on this wise. He was encamped 
upon one of the loftiest mountains in Union county. It was 
near the twilight hour, and he had heard the howl of a wolf. 
With a view of ascertaining the direction whence it came, 
he climbed upon an immense boulder-rock, (weighing per- 
haps fifty tons,) which stood on the very brow of a steep 
hill side. While standing upon this boulder he suddenly 
felt a swinging sensation, and to his astonishment he found 
that it was about to make a fearful plunge into the ravine 
half a mile below him. As fortune would have it, the limb 
of an oak tree drooped over the rock ; and, as the rock start- 
ed from its tottlish foundation, he seized the limb, and thereby 
saved his life. The dreadful crashing of the boulder as it 
descended the mountain side came to the hunter's ear while 
he was suspended in the air, and by the time it had reached 
the bottom he dropped himself on the very spot which had 
been vacated by the boulder. Vandever said that this was 
the only time in his life when he had been really frightened ; 
and he also added, that for one day after this escape he did 
not care a finger's snap for the finest game in the wilder- 
ness. 

While on my visit to Vandever's cabin, one of his boys 
came home from a fishing expedition, and on examining his 
fish I was surprised to find a couple of shad and three or 
four striped bass or rock-fish. They had been taken in the 



52 LETTERS FROM THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. 

Tallulah just below the chasm, by means of a wicker-net 
and at a point distant from the ocean at least two hundred 
and fifty miles. I had been informed that the Tallulah 
abounded in trout, but 1 was not prepared to find salt-water 
fish in this remote mountain wilderness. 

Since I have introduced the above youthful Vandever 
to my readers, I will record a single one of his deeds, which 
ought to give him a fortune, or at least an education. The 
incident occurred when he was in his twelfth year. He 
and a younger brother had been gathering berries on a 
mountain side, and were distant from home about two 
miles. While carelessly tramping down the weeds and 
bushes, the younger boy was bitten by a rattlesnake on the 
calf of his leg. In a few moments thereafter the unhappy 
child fell to the ground in great pain, and the pair were of 
course in unexpected tribulation. The elder boy, having 
succeeded in killing the rattlesnake, conceived the idea, as 
the only alternative, of carrying his little brother home up- 
on his back. And this deed did the noble fellow accom- 
plish. For two long miles did he carry his heavy burden, 
over rocks and down the water-courses, and in an hour af- 
ter he had reached his father's cabin the younger child was 
dead ; and the heroic boy was in a state of insensibility 
from the fatigue and heat which he had experienced. He 
recovered, however, and is now apparently in the enjoy- 
ment of good health, though when I fixed my admiring eyes 
upon him it seemed to me that he was far from being 
strong, and it was evident that a shadow rested upon his 
brow. 



LETTER VII. 

Trail Mountain, Georgia, May, 1848. 

I NOW write from near the summit of the highest moun- 
tain in Georgia. I obtained my first view of this peak while 
in the village of Clarksville, and it presented such a com- 
manding appearance, that I resolved to surmount it, on my 
way to the North, although my experience has proven that 
climbing high mountains is always more laborious than pro- 
fitable. I came here on the back of a mule, and my guide 
and companion on the occasion was the principal proprietor 
of Nacoochee valley, Major Edward Williams. While 
ascending the mountain, which occupied about seven hours, 
(from his residence,) the venerable gentleman expatiated at 
considerable length on the superb scenery to be witnessed 
from its summit, and then informed me that he had just 
established a dairy on the mountain, which, it was easy to 
see, had become his hobby. He described the "ranges " of 
the mountains as affording an abundance of the sweetest 
food for cattle, and said that he had already sent to his dairy 
somewhere betw^een fifty and eighty cows, and was intend- 
ing soon to increase the number to one hundred. He told 
me that his dairyman was an excellent young man from 
Vermont, named Joseph E. Hubbard, to whom he was in- 
debted for the original idea of establishing the dairy. While 
journeying through this region the young man chanced to 



54 LETTERS FROM THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. 

Stop at the major's house, and though they were perfect 
strangers, they conversed upon matters connected with 
farming, and soon became acquainted ; and the stranger 
having made known the fact that he knew how to make 
butter and cheese, a bargain was struck, which has re- 
sulted in the estabhshment already mentioned. The Wil- 
liams dairy is said to be the only one in the entire State of 
Georgia, and it is worthy of remark, in this connection, 
that Major Williams (as well as his dairyman) is a native 
of New-England. He has been an exile from Yankee land 
for upwards of twenty years, and though nearly seventy 
years of age, it appears that his natural spirit of enterprise 
remains in full vigor. 

Trail Mountain was so named by the Cherokees, from 
the fact that they once had a number of trails leading to 
the summit, to which point they were in the habit of as- 
cending for the purpose of discovering the camp-fires of 
their enemies during the existence of hostilities. It is the 
king of the Blue Ridge, and reported to be five thousand 
feet above the waters of the surrounding country, and per- 
haps six thousand feet above the level of the ocean. A 
carpet of green grass and weeds extends to the very top, 
and as the trees are small, as well as " few and far between," 
the lover of extensive scenery has a fine opportunity of 
gratifying his taste. I witnessed a sunset from this great 
watch-tower of the South, and I know not that I was ever 
before more deeply impressed with the grandeur of a land- 
scape scene. The horizon formed an unbroken circle, but 
1 could distinctly see that in one direction alone (across 
South Carolina and part of Georgia) extended a compara- 
tively level country, while the remaining three-quarters of 
the space around me appeared to be a wilderness of moun- 



LETTERS FROM THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. 55 

tains. The grandest display was towards the north, and 
here it seemed to me that I could count at least twenty dis- 
tinct ranges, fading away to the sky. until the more remote 
range melted into a monotonous line. No cities or towns 
came within the limit of my vision ; no, nor even an occa- 
sional wreath of smoke, to remind me that human hearts 
were beating in the unnumbered valleys. A crimson hue 
covered the sky, but it was without a cloud to cheer the 
prospect, and the solemn shadow which rested upon the 
mountains was too deep to partake of a single hue from the 
departing sun. Grandeur and gloom, like twin spirits, 
seemed to have subdued the world, causing the pulse of na- 
ture to cease its accustomed throb. " At one stride came 
the dark," and, as there was no moon, I retreated from the 
peak with pleasure, and sought the rude cabin, where I was 
to spend the night. While doing this, the distant howl of 
a wolf came to my ear, borne upward on the quiet air from 
one of the deep ravines leading to the base of the mountain. 

As I was the guest of my friends Williams and Hubbard, 
I whiled away the evening in their society, asking and an- 
swering a thousand questions. Among the matters touch- 
ed upon in our conversation was a certain mysterious 
" water-spout," of which I had heard a great deal among 
the people in my journeying, and which was said to have 
fallen upon Trail Mountain. I again inquired into the par- 
ticulars, and Major Williams replied as follows : 

" This water-spout story has always been a great both- 
eration to me. The circumstance occurred several years 
ago. A number of hunters were spending the night in the 
very ravine where this shanty now stands, when, about 
midnight, they heard a tremendous roaring in the air, and 
a large torrent of water fell upon their camp and swept it, 



56 LETTERS FROM THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. 

with all its effects and its inmates, about a dozen yards from 
the spot where they had planted their poles. There were 
three hunters, and one of them was severely injured on the 
head by the water, and all of them completely drenched. 
They were of course much alarmed at the event, and con- 
cluded that a spring farther up the mountain had probably 
broken away ; but when morning came they could find no 
evidences of a spring, and every where above their camp- 
ing place the ground was perfectly dry, while on the low- 
er side it was completely saturated. They were now per- 
plexed to a marvellous degree, and returned to the lower 
country impressed with the idea that a water-spout had 
burst over their heads.'' 

I of course attempted no explanation of this phenome- 
non, but Mr. Hubbard gave it as his opinion that if the 
affair actually did occur, it originated from a whirlwind, 
which might have taken up the water from some neighbor- 
ing river, and dashed it by the merest accident upon the 
poor hunters. But this reasoning seemed to me like getting 
" out of the frying pan into the fire ;" whereupon I conclud- 
ed to " tell the tale as 'twas told to me," for the especial 
benefit of Professor Espy. 

But to return to the dairy, which is unquestionably the 
chief attraction (though far from being a romantic one) 
connected with Trail Mountain. Heretofore a cheese 
establishment has been associated in my mind with broad 
meadow lands, spacious and well-furnished out-houses, and 
a convenient market. But here we have a 'dairy on the 
top of a mountain, distant from the first farm-house some 
fifteen miles, and inaccessible by any conveyance but that 
of a mule or well-trained horse. The bells of more than 
half a hundred cows are echoing along the mountain side ; 



LETTERS FROM THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. 57 

and, instead of clover, they are feeding upon the luxuriant 
weed of the wilderness ; instead of cool cellars, we have 
here a hundred tin pans arranged upon tables in a log 
cabin, into which a cool spring pours its refreshing trea- 
sure ; instead of a tidy and matronly housewife to super- 
intend the turning of the curd, we have an enterprising 
young Yankee, a veritable Green Mountain boy ; and in- 
stead of pretty milkmaids, the inferiors of this establish- 
ment are huge negroes, and all of the masculine gender. 
And this is the establishment which supplies the people of 
Georgia with cheese, and the material out of which the 
scientific caterer manufactures the palatable Welsh Rabbit. 



LETTER VIII. 

Murphy, North Carolina, May, 1848. 

The distance from Hubbard's Cabin, on Trail Moun- 
tain, to the Owassa river, in a direct line, is eight miles, 
but by the ordinary mule-route it is thirteen. In coming 
to this river I took the direct route, albeit my only guide 
was an ancient Indian trail. My friend Hubbard doubted 
whether I could make the trip alone, but I was anxious to 
save time and labor, so I determined on trying the exper- 
iment. I shouldered my knapsack and started immedi- 
ately after an early breakfast, and for a distance of two 
miles every thing turned out to my entire satisfaction. 1 
was now standing upon the extreme summit of the Blue 
Ridge, and within a stone's throw of two springs which 
empty their several waters into the Gulf of Mexico and the 
Ohio river. While stopping here to obtain a little breath, 
I discovered a large spot of bare earth, which I took to be 
a deer yard, and directly across the middle of it the fresh 
tracks of a large wolf. I had no gun with me, and this dis- 
covery made me a little nervous, which resulted, as I pro- 
ceeded on my journey, in my losing the trail upon which 
I had started. I soon came to a brook, however, which 
rushed down an immense ravine at an angle of forty-five 
degrees, and I continued my way feeling quite secure. My 
course lay down, down, down, and then, as I wandered 



LETTERS FROM THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. 59 

from the brook, it was up, up, up. At the rate that I trav- 
elled I knew that I ought to reach my place of destination 
in at at least one hour, but four hours elapsed and I reluc- 
tantly came to the conclusion that I was most decidedly 
lost, and that, too, among what I fancied to be the wildest 
and most lonely mountains on the face of the earth. Then 
came the thought of spending the night in the wilderness, 
alone and unprotected, to be destroyed by the wild animals 
or to be starved to death. I resolved, however, to continue 
along the brook, knowing that it must come out " some- 
where ;" and, as [ was by this time in a mOst painful state 
of excitement, I clambered up the cliffs and ran down the 
hills at what now appears to me to have been a fearful rate. 
The sun was excessively hot, and at every rivulet that I 
crossed I stopped to slake my thirst. The brook was con- 
stantly making a new turn, and leaping over ledges of 
rocks more than a hundred feet high, and every new bluff 
that I saw (and there seemed to be no end to them) began, 
to shoot a pang to my bewildered brain. At one time I 
startled a herd of deer from a cool ravine, where they were 
spending the noontide hours ; and on one occasion I was 
within a single foot of stepping on a rattlesnake, and when I 
heard his fearful rattle I made a leap which would have 
astonished even Sands, Lent & Co., or any other circus 
magicians. It was now the middle of the afternoon, and 
my blood seemed to have reached the temperature of boil- 
ing heat; my heart began to palpitate, and I came to the 
conclusion that the critics would never again have an op- 
portunity of doubting my adventures in the wilderness. 
Just in the nick of time, however, I heard the howling 
music of a pack of hounds, and in a few moments a beauti- 
ful doe and some half a dozen dogs shot across my patii 



60 LETTERS FROM THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. 

like a " rushing mighty wind.'' This little incident led me 
to believe that I was not very far from a settlement, and 
had a tendency to revive my spirits. The result was that 
I reached the cottage of an old gentleman named Riley, in 
the valley of Owassa, just as the sun was setting, where 1 
was treated with the utmost kindness by his consort — hav- 
ing travelled at least twenty miles on account of my mis- 
hap. I had lost my appetite, but was persuaded to drink 
two cups of coffee and then retire to bed. I slept until 
daybreak, without being visited by an unpleasant dream, 
and arose on the following morning a new man. On the 
following day I travelled down the Owassa valley a dis- 
tance of thirty miles, until I reached the very pretty place 
where I am now tarrying. The Cherokee word Owassa 
signifies the main jnver, or the largest of the tributaries : 
and the paraphrase of this name into Hioivassee by the 
map-makers is only a ridiculous blunder. So I have been 
informed, at any rate, by one of the oldest Cherokees now 
living. The Owassa is a tributary of the noble Tennessee, 
and is as clear, beautiful, rapid and picturesque a mountain 
river as I have ever seen. At Wiley's cottage it is per- 
haps one hundred feet wide, and at this point it is not far 
from one hundred and fifty yards. It is quite circuitous 
in its course, and the vallej^ through which it runs is nar- 
row, but very fertile and pretty well cultivated. The people 
live almost exclusively in log cabins, and appear to be intelli- 
gent and moral, though apparently destitute of all enterprise. 
The only novelty that 1 noticed on the road to this place 
was the spot known as Fo7^t Emhree. The only evidences 
that there ever was a fortification here are a breastwork 
of timber, a lot of demolished pickets, and two or three 
block-houses, which are now in a dilapidated condition. 



LETTERS FROM THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. 61 

The site is a commanding one, and takes in some of the 
grandest mountain outlines that I have yet seen. This 
fort, so called, was made by the General Government for 
the purpose of herding the poor Cherokees previous to their 
final banishment into exile — a most humane and christian- 
like work, indeed ! How reluctant the Indians were to 
leave this beautiful land may be shown by the fact, that a 
number of women destroyed themselves within this very 
fort rather than be driven beyond the Mississippi. And a 
gentleman who saw the Indians, when they were removed, 
tells me that they were actually driven along the road like 
a herd of wild and unruly animals, a number of them hav- 
ing been shot down in the vicinity of this place. All these 
things may have been published, but I have never seen 
them in print ; and I now put them in print with the view 
of shaming our heartless and cruel Government for its un- 
natural conduct in times past. The Cherokees were a 
nation of mountaineers, and, had a wise policy been pur- 
sued with regard to them, they might now be chasing the 
deer upon these mountains, while all the valleys of the land 
might have been in a state of cultivation, even as they are 
now. Not only would they have had the happiness of 
hunting their favorite game upon their native hills, but they 
might have been educated with more real satisfaction to 
themselves than they can be in the Far West. In proof of 
the opinion that they might have lived here in honor and 
comfort, it may be mentioned that the few Cherokees who 
were permitted to remain in Carolina, are now considered 
the most polite and inoffensive of the entire population ; 
and the United States District Attorney residing in Chero- 
kee county informs me, that of five hundred individuals 
whom he has had to prosecute within the last five years, 



62 LETTERS FROM THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. 

only one of them was an Indian, and he was led into his 
difficulty by a drunken white man. But this is a theme 
that I could write upon for days, so I will turn to some- 
thing more germain to my present purpose. 

In coming down the valley of Owassa I met with a 
number of incidents which I fancy worth mentioning. For 
example, in passing along a certain road in Union county, 
Georgia, I approached a ricketty log cabin, and was sur- 
prised to see the family and all the dogs vacate the premises, 
as if I had been a personified plague. I was subsequently 
informed that this was a common habit with the more bar- 
barous people of this region when they see a stranger pass- 
ing along the road. 

Among the characteristic travelling establishments that 
I met in the above country, was the following : a very 
small covered wagon, (drawn by one mule and one deformed 
horse,) which was laden with corn-husks, a few bedclothes, 
and several rude cooking utensils. Behind this team 
marched a man and his wife, five boys, and eight girls, and 
in their rear the skeleton of a cow and four hungry-look- 
ing dogs. They had been farming in Union county, but 
were now on their way into Habersham county in search 
of a new location. The youngest daughter belonging to 
this family, as I casually found out by giving her a small 
piece of money, was Dorcas Ann Eliza Jane Charlotte 

. On hearing this startling information I could not 

wonder that the family were poor, and had a thorny road 
to pursue through life. 

But the most unique incident that I picked up on the 
day in question may be narrated as follows : I was quietly 
jogging along the road, when I was startled by the drop- 
ping of a snake from a small tree. I stopped to see what 



LETTERS FROM THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. 63 

was the matter, and discovered it to be a black snake or 
racer, and that he had in his mouth the tail end of a scar- 
let lizard about five inches long. It wsls evident the snake 
had some difficulty in swallov^^ing the precious morsel, and 
while he seemed to be preparing for another effort, I saw 
the lizard twist its body and bite the snake directly on the 
back of the head, which caused the latter to loosen his 
hold. Again did I see the snake attack the lizard, and a 
second time did the lizard bite the snake, whereupon the 
serpent gave up the fight, and, while I was hunting for a 
stick to kill the serpent, both of the reptiles made their es- 
cape. 

The little village of Murphy, whence I date this letter, 
lies at the junction of the Owassa and Valley rivers, and 
in point of location is one of the prettiest places in the 
world. Its Indian name was Klausuna, or the Large 
Turtle. It was so called, says a Cherokee legend, on ac- 
count of its being the sunning place of an immense turtle 
which lived in its vicinity in ancient times. The turtle 
was particularly famous for its repelling power, having 
been known not to be at all injured by a stroke of light- 
ning. Nothing on earth had power to annihilate the crea- 
ture ; but, on account of the many attempts made to take 
its life, when it was known to be a harmless and inoffen- 
sive creature, it became disgusted with this world, and bur- 
rowed its way into the middle of the earth, where it now 
lives in peace. 

In connection with this legend, I may here mention 
what must be considered a remarkable fact in geology. 
Running directly across the village of Murphy is a belt of 
marble, composed of the black, gray, pure white and flesh- 
colored varieties, which belt also crosses the Owassa river. 



64 LETTERS FROM THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. 

Just above this marble causeway the Owassa, for a space 
of perhaps two hundred feet, is said to be over one hundred 
feet deep, and at one point, in fact, a bottom has never 
been found. All this is simple truth, but I have heard the 
opinion expressed that there is a subterranean communica- 
tion between this immense hole in Owassa and the river 
Notely, which is some two miles distant. The testimony 
adduced in proof of this theory is, that a certain log was 
once marked on the Notely, which log was subsequently 
found floating in the pool of the Deep Hole in the Owassa, 



LETTER IX. 

Franklin, North Carolina, May, 1848. 

The distance from Murphy to this place is reported to 
be fifty miles. For twenty miles the road runs in full view 
of Valley river, which is worthy in every particular of the 
stream into which it empties, the Owassa. It is a remark- 
bly cold and translucent stream, and looks as if it ought to 
contain trout, but I am certain that it does not. On in- 
quiring of a homespun angler what fish the river did pro- 
duce, he replied : " Salmon, black trout, red horse, hog-fish, 
suckers and cat-fish." I took the liberty of doubting the 
gentleman's word, and subsequently found out that the peo- 
ple of this section of country call the legitimate pickerel the 
" salmon," the black bass the " black trout," the mullet the 
"red horse," and a deformed sucker the "hog-fish." And 
now, while I think of it, I would intimate to my friends re- 
siding on the Ohio (to which glorious river all the streams 
of this region pay tribute) that their salmon is none other 
than the genuine pickerel of the North and South, their 
white perch only the sheep's head of the great lakes, and 
their black perch is but another name for the black or Os- 
wego bass. So much for a piscatorial correction. 

The only picture which attracted my particular atten- 
tion in passing up the fertile but generally neglected bottom 
lands of Valley river, was a farm of twenty-five hundred 
4* 



66 LETTERS FROM THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. 

acres, one thousand acres being as level as a floor and high- 
ly cultivated. The soil seemed exceedingly rich, and it 
was evident yielded a considerable income to its possessor. 
I heard, in fact, that the proprietor had been offered twenty- 
five thousand dollars for this farm. And in what kind of a 
house does my reader imagine this wealthy man resided ? 
In a miserable log hovel, a decayed and windowless one, 
which a respectable member of the swine family would 
hardly deign to occupy. Instances something like to this 
had already come to my knowledge, and caused me to won- 
der at the inconsistency and apparent want of common 
sense manifested by some of the farmers of this country, but 
this instance capped the climax. But again, the individual 
alluded to is a wliite man, and prides himself upon being 
more intelligent and acute than his neighbors ; and yet one 
of his neighbors is an Indian woman, who raises only about 
five thousand bushels of potatoes per annum, but occupies 
a comfortable dwelling and lives like a rational being. 

After leaving the above valley, my course lay over two 
distinct spurs of the Alleghanies, which are divided by the 
river Nan-ti-ha-lah, and consequently called the Nan-ti-ha- 
lah Mountains. In ascending the western ridge, I noticed 
that at the foot and midway up the pass the trees were all 
arrayed in their summer verdure, and among the forest trees 
were many chestnut and poplar specimens, which were at 
least seven or eight feet in diameter ; while the more eleva- 
ted portions of the ridge were covered with scrub and 
white oak, which were entirely destitute of foliage and not 
even in the budding condition. No regular cliffs frowned 
upon me as 1 passed along, but the mountains on either side 
were almost perpendicular, and in one or two places were 
at least twenty-five hundred feet high. In the side of the 



LETTERS FROM THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. 67 

highest of these mountains, I was informed, is a deep fissure 
or cave, which extends to the summit of the hill, where the 
outlet is quite small. When the wind is blowing from the 
northwest it passes entirely through this long and mysteri- 
ous cavern, and when issuing from the top comes with such 
force as to throw out all the smaller stones which one may 
happen to drop therein. In descending this spur, the road 
passes directly along the margin of the most gloomy thicket 
imaginable. It is about a mile wide and somewhat over 
three miles in length. It is rank with vegetation, and the 
principal trees are laurel and hemlock. Even at noonday 
it is impossible to look into it more than a half a dozen 
yards, and then you but peer into the opening of leafy caves 
and grottoes which are perpetually cool and very desolate. 
It is said to abound in the more ferocious of wild animals, 
and no white man is yet known to have mustered courage 
enough to explore the jungle. During the existence of the 
Cherokee difficulties, the Indians were in the habit of en- 
camping on many places on its margin for the purpose of 
easily eluding their pursuers ; and it is reported of one In- 
dian hunter, who once entered the thicket, that he never 
returned, having, as is supposed, been overpowered by some 
wild beast. It was upon the margin of this horrible place, 
too, that the following incident occurred. An Indian wo- 
man once happened to be travelling down the mountain, 
unaccompanied by her husband, but with three young chil- 
dren, two little girls and a papoose. In an unexpected 
moment an enraged panther crossed their trail, and while 
it fell upon and destroyed the mother and one child, the 
elder girl ran for her life, carrying the infant on her back. 
The little heroine had not gone over a half a mile with her 
burden before the panther caught up with her, and drag- 



68 LETTERS FROM THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. 

ged the infant from her grasp ; and while the savage crea- 
ture was destroying this third victim, the httle girl made 
her escape to a neighboring encampment. 

The river Nan-ti-ha-lah, or the Woman's Bosom, was 
so named on account of its undulating and narrow valley, 
and its own intrinsic purity and loveliness. Upon this 
river is situated a rude but comfortable cabin, which is 
the only one the traveller meets with in going a distance 
of twenty miles. On first approaching this cabin, I noticed 
a couple of sweet little girls playing on the greensward be- 
fore the door with a beautiful fawn, which was as tame as 
a lamb. This group, taken in connection with the wild- 
ness of the surrounding scene, gave me a most delightful 
feeling, the contrast was so strange and unexpected. The 
proprietor of the cabin owns about five thousand acres of 
land in this wilderness region, and is by profession a graz- 
ing farmer. He raises a goodly number of cattle as well 
as horses and mules, and his principal markets for them 
are Charleston and Savannah, to which cities he performs 
a pilgrimage in the autumn of every year. He is one of 
the " oldest inhabitants" of the region, and as I spent one 
night under his roof, I took occasion to draw from him a 
few anecdotes connected with his own experience. On 
questioning him with regard to the true character of the 
panther, he replied as follows : " I don't know much about 
this animal, but I have had one chance to study their nature 
which I can't forget. It was a very dark night, and I was 
belated on the western ridge, near the Big Laurel ravine. 
I was jogging along at a slow rate, when my horse made a 
terrible leap aside, and I saw directly in front of me one of 
the biggest of panthers. He soon uttered a shriek or scream 
(which sounded like a woman in distress) and got out of 



LETTERS FROM THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. 69 

the way, so that I could pass along. Every bone in my 
horse's body trembled with fear, and I can tell you that my 
own feelings were pretty squally. On my way was I still 
jogging, when the panther again made his appearance, just 
as he had before, and gave another of his infernal yells. 
I had no weapon with me, and I now thought I was a gone 
case. Again did the animal disappear, and again did I con- 
tinue on my journey. I had not gone more than a hundred 
yards before I saw, on the upper side of the road, what 
looked like a couple of balls of fire, and just as I endeavored 
to urge my horse a little faster, another dreadful scream 
rang far down the valley. But, to make a long story short, 
this animal followed me until I got within a half a mile of 
my house, and, though he ran around me at least a dozen 
times, and uttered more than a dozen screams, he never 
touched me, and I got safely home. If you can gather any 
information from this adventure you are welcome to it ; 
but all I know about the animal is this, that I hate him as 
I do the devil." 

My host informed me that he was one of the men ap- 
pointed by the Government to assess the property of the 
Cherokees at the time of their removal, and was subse- 
quently employed to aid in their coerced removal. With 
a view of pacifying the Indians, it had been stipulated that 
the cabin and improvements of each Indian should be as- 
sessed, and an equivalent in money should be paid into 
his hands for said property ; and a part of the nation, it 
will be remembered, including the head chief, were opposed 
to the treaty of banishment. In fulfiUing his duties as a 
Government officer, my informant endured many hardships, 
subjected himself to much peril, and met with many touch- 
ing as well as some ridiculous scenes. In the course of a 



70 LETTERS FROM THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. 

few months he visited, in connection with his assistant and 
interpreter, every cabin in the counties of Cherokee and 
Macon ; and, from the numerous adventures which he re- 
lated to me, I will record two or three. 

" At one time," said my friend, " we arrived at a cabin 
were we knew resided, ' solitary and alone,' an old bache- 
lor Indian. It was night, and very cold and stormy. As 
we were tying our horses the Indian heard us, and, know- 
ing our business, immediately arose and fastened his door 
that we should not get in. We remonstrated from with- 
out, and told him we were almost frozen, and he must ad- 
mit us, but never a word would he answer ; and this was 
repeated several times. We finally got mad and knocked 
down the door and entered. The Indian was lying upon a 
bench before the fire, and by his side were four dogs. We 
asked him a number of questions, but still did he keep si- 
lent. We had by this time made up our minds to ' take 
care of number one,' and proceeded to cook our bacon. In 
doing this we had great difficulty on account of the dogs, 
which w^ere almost starved to death, and were constantly 
grabbing up our victuals from the coals. They were the 
ugliest animals that I ever saw, and did not care a pin for 
the heavy licks that we gave them. And the only way 
we could get along was for the interpreter to cook the 
meat, while my assistant and myself seated ourselves at the 
two corners of the hearth, and as the dogs jumped over 
the body of the Indian, (who was yet lying on his bench,) 
we would grab them by the neck and tail and pitch them 
across the room. So this interesting business continued 
until the meat was cooked. I then took a slice, put it on a 
piece of bread, and giving it to the Indian, said to him : 
' Now don't be a fool, take this meat and be good friends, 



LETTERS FROM THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. 71 

for we don't want to injure you.' Whereupon he got over 
his resentment, took the meat, and began talking so that 
we could not stop him." 

But another incident related to me was truly affecting, 
and occurred at the time of removal. " There was an 
old Indian," continued my host, " named Euchellah, who 
had thrown out the idea that he was a strong man, and 
never would submit to leave his cabin willingly : those who 
wanted him to go must take him by force. It was in the 
forenoon, and a whole posse of officers entered his cabin, 
and after a pretty severe scuffle we succeeded in fasten- 
ing the -old fellow's arms and hands with a rope. He now 
saw that he must go, and told his wife to get ready, and 
she got ready hy going out to feed her pig and the chickens, 
just as if she was coming back in a few hours. We then 
started with our prisoners, and just as we were crossing a 
hill which overlooked the Indian's cabin, he suddenly wheel- 
ed about, and as his eyes fell upon his little garden and his 
hut, he burst into tears, and I thought the man's heart 
would break. And now when people tell me that the In- 
dian never weeps, I tell them it's no such thing ; but, it was 
true, Euchellah had some reason to feel bad ; for he had 
four children buried near his cabin, and had lived there for 
fifty years. We continued on our way to the West, but in 
two days our Indian made his escape with his wife. We 
hunted for them among the mountains, and though we re- 
captured Euchellah, we never could find his wife, and after- 
wards heard that she starved to death on a distant moun- 
tain. The Indian was now guarded by four soldiers; but, 
while crossing a certain gap, he suddenly rose upon his 
keepers and killed three of them, while the other officer, as 
well as himself, escaped. The Indian was again taken pris- 



72 LETTERS FROM THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. 

oner, tried by court martial, and sentenced to he executed. 
When told that he was to be shot down by a rifle ball, he 
manifested no fear, and, up to the moment that he was shot 
down, not a tear made its appearance in his eye. He could 
weep on leaving his home, but he would not w^eep when he 
came to die. And the old man was buried on the road 
side, half way between this place and Murphy." 

" But another removal incident that I remember," con- 
tinued my landlord, " was to this effect. It was another 
old Indian who had a large family and was religious. When 
we called to take him, he said he only wanted to ask one 
favor, which was, that we would let him have odie more 
prayer with his wife and children in his old cabin. We 
of course granted the request, and when he was through 
out came the old fellow and said that he was ready. But 
just as we were leaving the little clearing, the Indian call- 
ed his wife and children to his side, and talked to them in 
the most poetical and afiecting manner about their meager 
but much-loved possession, which they were about to leave 
for ever. He then took the lead of our procession, and 
without uttering a word, marched onward with a firm step. 
We never heard this man's voice again until we had passed 
beyond the Mississippi." 

The scenery lying between the Nan-ti-ha-lah and this 
place is of the wildest character. From the summit of the 
pass and along the road as you descend to the eastward, a 
number of very imposing scenes present themselves, but 
chief among all the hills rises the rugged peak of Bald 
Mountain. The prospect from this point is similar to that 
which I have described from Trail Mountain, but the legend 
which commemorates the place is quite interesting, and ac- 
counts for the baldness of the mountain's top, which was 



LETTERS FROM THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. 73 

formerly covered with a dense forest. The Cherokees re- 
late that there once existed among those mountains a very- 
large bird, which resembled in appearance the green-wing- 
ed hornet, and this creature was in the habit of carrying off 
the younger children of the nation who happened to wander 
into the woods. Very many children had mysteriously dis- 
appeared in this manner, and the entire people declared a 
warfare against the monster. A variety of means were 
employed for his destruction, but without success. In pro- 
cess of time it was determined that the wise men (or medi- 
cine men) of the nation should try their skill in the business. 
They met in council and agreed that each one should sta- 
tion himself on the summit of a mountain, and that, when the 
creature was discovered, the man who made the discovery 
should utter a loud halloo, which shout should be taken up 
by his neighbor on the next mountain, and so continued 
to the end of the line, that all the men might have a shot 
at the strange bird. This experiment was tried and result- 
ed in finding out the hiding-place of the monster, which was 
a deep cavern on the eastern side of the Blue Ridge and at 
the fountain-head of the river Too-ge-lah. On arriving at 
this place, they found the entrance to the cavern entirely 
inaccessible by mortal feet, and they therefore prayed to 
the Great Spirit that he would bring out the bird from his 
den, and place him within reach of their arms. Their pet^ 
tion was granted, for a terrible thunder-storm immediately 
arose, and a stroke of lightning tore away one half of a 
large mountain, and the Indians were successful in slaying 
their enemy. The Great Spirit was pleased with the cour- 
age manifested by the Cherokees during this dangerous 
fight, and, with a view of rewarding the same, he willed it 
that all the highest mountains in their land should thereaf- 



74 LETTERS FROM THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. 

ter be destitute of trees, so that they might always have an 
opportunity of watching the movements of their enemies- 
As a sequel to this legend, it may be appropriately men- 
tioned, that at the head of the Too-ge-lah is to be found one 
of the most remarkable curiosities in this mountain-land. 
It is a granite cliff, with a smooth surface or front, half a 
mile long, and twelve hundred feet high, and generally 
spoken of in this part of the country as the White- side 
Mountain, or the Devil's Court-house. To think of it is 
almost enough to make one dizzy, but to see it fills one with 
awe. Near the top of one part of this cliff is a small cave, 
which can be reached only by passing over a strip of rock 
about two feet wide. One man only has ever been known 
to enter it, and when he performed the deed he met at the 
entrance of the cave a large bear, which animal, in making 
its escape, slipped off the rock, fell a distance of near a 
thousand feet, and was of course killed. When the man 
saw this, he became so much excited that it was some 
hours before he could quiet his nerves sufficiently to 
retrace his dangerous pathway. 



LETTER X. 

Franklin, North Carolina, May, 1848. 
The little village of Franklin is romantically situated on the 
Little Tennessee. It is sm'rounded with mountains, and as 
quiet and pretty a hamlet as I have yet seen among the 
Alleghanies. On the morning after entering this place, I 
went to the post office, for the purpose of obtaining a peep 
at the last number of the National Intelligencer, whereup- 
on the officiating gentleman informed me that I should find 
it at the office of a young lawyer whom he named. I call- 
ed upon the legal gentleman, and found him, like all the in- 
telligent people of the country, very polite and well in- 
formed. In speaking of the surrounding pictorial associa- 
tions he alluded to a certain waterfall, and added that the 
gentleman who referred me to him owned a plantation 
near the falls, on a famous trout-stream, and was an angler^ 
On this hint I sent a couple of handsome flies, as a present, 
to my post-office friend, and in less than twenty minutes 
thereafter he made his appearance at my lodgings, and in- 
sisted that we should go upon a fishing excursion, and that 
the lawyer should accompany us. Horses were immediately 
procured, and having rode a distance of ten miles along a 
very beautiful stream called Kul-la-sa-jah, or the Sugar 
Water, we came to the chasm leading to the falls. Here 
we tied our horses, and while my companions commenced 



76 LETTERS FROM THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. 

throwing the fly, I proceeded to the more profitable em- 
ployment of taking sketches. 

The chasm of the Sugar Water Falls is about half a 
mile long, and immediately below the precipices are per- 
pendicular and very imposing, reaching an elevation of at 
least one thousand feet. The falls themselves are three in 
number — the first and principal one being about sixty feet 
high. Emptying into the Sweet Water, directly at the 
lower end of the chasm, is a tiny brook without a name, 
upon which I found a cascade of great beauty. The water 
falls near forty feet, but sings its eternal song in a shadowy 
recess, where hoary trees, mossy rocks, and exquisite vines, 
of every variety peculiar to the country, remain in their 
original wildness. As I clambered up the ravine leading 
to this cascade, 1 startled a doe from the green couch where 
she had been spending the noontide hours. I added a 
number of sketches to my portfolio, and after spending 
'' alone in my glory" the whole afternoon, wandering from 
one chasm to another, I left the delightful valley with re- 
luctance, musing upon the marvellous beauty of every 
thing in the world formed by the hand of God. 

On arriving at the spot where our horses were tied, I 
found my companions both wearing uncommonly long 
faces, for they had not succeeded in killing a single trout. 
I joked my post-office friend about his "famous trout- 
stream," and then, remounting our horses, we paid a visit 
to his plantation, where we enjoyed a comfortable supper, 
and continued on our way home by the light of the moon. 
Under any circumstances this would have been an agree- 
able ride, but on the present occasion my companions did 
all the talking, and the substance of two of their stories I 
herewith subjoin merely as specimens : 



LETTERS FROM THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. 77 

" I can't account for our bad luck in catching trout to- 
day/' said my post-office friend; "but I do assure you that 
a couple of young men named Hyatt, and myself, once 
went a fishing in the Sweet Water, and we took one hun- 
dred and seventy-five trout. But this is not to the purpose. 
On that occasion we fished up the stream ; and when we 
came to the mouth of the chasm, we saw a big buck, which 
we frightened towards the falls as we ascended. When 
we came near the falls, one of the Hyatts and myself 
stopped fishing, and went to work to corner the buck, and 
see if we could kill him with stones, or cause him to drown 
himself. There was no way for him to make his escape, ex- 
cept by running directly over us, and this we did not suppose 
he would dare attempt. He made many desperate efforts to 
get away, and at one time managed to climb an almost 
perpendicular wall of rock to the height of some twenty 
feet, when he lost his foothold and fell into the pool below. 
He now became very much enraged, but we continued to 
pelt him with stones, though without effecting any serious 
injury. After bothering him for at least half an hour, the 
creature finally got upon the rocks at the lower part of the 
pool, when he swept by us with great fury, and started 
down the chasm, making some of the most fearful leaps 
that I ever saw. And now it so happened that we saw 
the younger Hyatt standing upon a rock and casting his 
fly upon a pool, where we thought the deer must pass in 
his downward course, and we immediately shouted to the 
angler to 'look out.' He did so, and immediately drew out 
a hunting-knife which he had in his pocket, and as the deer 
tumbled into the pool, young Hyatt actually jumped upon 
his back, and succeeded in giving him a fatal stab, so that 
the animal merely crawled upon the rocks to die. It was 



78 LETTERS FROM THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. 

quite late in the evening before we started for home, and 
we only brought the skin along with us ; but as we left the 
chasm, we saw a large panther descending one of the cliffs 
of the gorge, as if hastening to have a feast upon the dead 
deer." 

The " story" of my lawyer friend, or rather a fragment 
of his entertaining conversation was as follows : " As it is 
important, Mr. Lanman, that you should not leave our 
country without learning something of our great person- 
ages, and as our companion here is a modest man, I will 
give you a brief sketch of his character. He is a gentle- 
man of some property, for he not only owns the plantation 
where we took supper, but one or two others of equal 
value. He is one of the oldest residents in this mountain 
region — a gentleman of fine moral character, and with a 
heart as guileless as that of a child. He is a passionate 
lover of scenery, and has probably explored the beauties of 
this mountain land more thoroughly than any other man 
now living ; he is also a great lover of botany, geology, 
insectology, and a dozen other ologies, and I believe has 
made a number of discoveries in all his favorite studies. 
As you have heard, he tells a capital story, and, as you 
may see by looking into some of our southern newspapers, 
he uses the pen with ease and a degree of elegance. He 
cherishes a love for the ' angle art,' and I must say usually 
succeeds in his fishing exploits much better than he has 
to-day. By profession he is a knight of the needle ; but, 
being somewhat advanced in years, he amuses himself by 
fulfilUng the duties of deputy postmaster in the village of 
Franklin." 

The lawyer was here interrupted by the hero of his 
story, who insisted upon his changing the " subject theme," 



LETTERS FROM THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. 79 

and the consequence is, my readers will be disappointed in 
obtaining any more information respecting the scientific 
deputy postmaster of the Alleghany mountains. 

But, leaving the intellectual out of view, the most in- 
teresting character whom I have seen about Franklin is an 
old Cherokee Indian. His name is Sa-taw-ha, or Hog-Bite, 
and he is upwards of one hundred years of age. He lives 
in a small log hut among the mountains, the door of which 
is so very low that you have to crawl into it upon your 
hands and knees. At the time the greater part of his 
nation were removed to the Far West, the " officers of jus- 
tice'^ called to obtain his company. He saw them as they 
approached, and, taking his loaded rifle in hand, he warned 
them not to attempt to lay their hands upon him, for he 
would certainly kill them. He was found to be so resolute 
and so very old, that it was finally concluded by those in 
power that the old man should be left alone. He lives the 
life of a hermit, and is chiefly supported by the charity of 
one or two Indian neighbors, though it is said he even now 
occasionally manages to kill a deer or turkey. His history 
is entirely unknown, and he says he can remember the 
time when the Cherokee nation lived upon the shores of a 
great ocean, (the Atlantic,) and the color of a white man's 
face was unknown. 

In the immediate vicinity of this place may be seen 
another of those mysterious Indian mounds which we find 
beautifying nearly all the valleys of this land. And here 
it may not be out of place for me to introduce the opinions 
concerning thei^ origin which prevail among the Indian 
tribes of the South. By some they are said to have been 
built by a race of people who have become extinct, and 
were formerly used by the Cherokees merely as convenient 



80 LETTERS FROM THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. 

* 

places to have their dances and their games. A supersti- 
tion also prevails, that in the ancient days every Indian 
brought to a certain place a small bark full of the soil 
w^hich he cultivated, as a tribute to the Great Spirit, who in 
return sent them a plenteous harvest. Some allege that 
they were the burial places of great warriors and hunters ; 
some that they were erected as trophies of remarkable vic- 
tories ; others that they were built as fortresses ; and others 
still that upon them were performed the more sacred of re- 
ligious rites. There is also a tradition existing among the 
Cherokees that these mounds formerly contained a species 
of sacred fire ; and it is well known that an Indian has 
never been known to deface one of them, and to see them 
defaced by the white man always seems to make them un- 
happy. The only light (in the way of opinion) that I can 
throw upon these mounds is, that they owe their origin to 
some aboriginal custom similar to that which has brought 
together the huge piles of stones which the traveller meets 
with in various portions of the southern country. But all 
this information is traditionary, the builders of these mounds 
are unknown, and all that even the wise of the present gen- 
eration can do is to look upon them in silence and wonder. 
The gentleman upon whose property the above men- 
tioned mound is situated is the nabob of the place, an in- 
telligent man, and an old resident. I am now his guest 
and he lives in comfortable style, his dwelling being sur- 
rounded with a score or two of out-houses. He carries on 
an extensive farming business, and is the owner of a goodly 
number of tidy, respectful, and industrious slaves. Though 
situated almost within rifle-shot of an impassable mountain, 
his residence is associated with clover-fields, a well-man- 
aged garden filled with flowers and vines, ancient trees 



LETTERS FROM THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. 81 

where sing the katydids in the evening hours, and above 
w^hich swoop the joyous and noisy martin and the beautiful 
dove ; and also with meadow-fields, where horses and cattle 
graze during the long summer day. But there is one asso- 
ciation connected with this farm-house which is still ring- 
ing in my ears : I allude to a perpetual chorus of an ever- 
lasting quantity of jackasses, peacocks, and guinea-hens. 
My host seems to have a passion for these apparently acci- 
dental or unfinished specimens of natural history ; and I 
must say that I have never before been privileged to enjoy 
such unearthly music as I have on his plantation. The 
painful braying of a jackass awakens his household from 
their slumbers, and the same braying, accompanied by the 
screams of the peacock and guinea-hen, continues without 
ceasing until the twilight hour, when the whippoorwill 
takes up her evening lay, and the world lapses into its 
nightly repose. 

Having spent a Sabbath in Franklin, I obtained a little 
information with regard to the religious condition of the 
people in this section of country. The only denominations 
who have preaching here are the Methodists and Baptists. 
Among the latter class, the Bible custom of washing feet 
is still kept up with rigor. The preachers of both denomi- 
nations are itinerants, and, so far as I have seen, are worthy, 
upright, and sensible men. They seem to think more of 
preaching the doctrines of Christ than proclaiming their 
own learning or advocating their own opinions, and it is 
therefore always a pleasure to hear them ; they know their 
duties, and faithfully fulfil them, and I believe accomplish 
much good. The people attend the Sunday meetings from 
a distance of ten and fifteen miles ; and, as the men and 
women all ride on horseback, and as they often come in 
5 



82 LETTERS FROM THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. 

parties, their appearance on approaching the church is often 
exceedingly picturesque. 

On the day of my arrival in this village, a negro team- 
ster met with an accident while passing over a neighboring 
mountain, which resulted in his losing one of his four horses, 
which happened to step over a log, and, on being cut loose, 
fell down a precipice of forty feet into a pool of water. On 
being questioned as to the manner in which the animal fell, 
the negro briefly but teU'mglj replied, " Ka ivallup, ka wal- 
lup, ka wallup, ka swash !" I thought this a most forcible 
description, and could not but admire the man's ingenuity 
in representing each somerset by a single word. 

Within a few days past I have become acquainted with 
two insects which I have never seen described, but which 
are found in abundance throughout the South. I allude to 
the dirt-dauber and the stump-stinger. In their general 
appearance they both resemble the wasp. The first lives 
in a cell, which it builds on the inner side of a shed or 
piazza. It is a noted enemy of the spider, and possesses 
the art and the habit of killing that insect in great numbers. 
But what is really remarkable, they have a fashion of stow- 
ing away the carcasses of their slaughtered enemies in their 
dwellings, as if for future use ; and after the cell is full, they 
close it with mud, and proceed to build another cell, so that 
the opulence of one of them may be calculated by the num- 
ber of his closed dwellings. The stump-stinger is remark- 
able for having attached to the middle of his body a hard 
and pointed weapon, with which he can dig a hole one inch 
in depth in the body of even a hickory tree. This weapon 
he usually carries under his tail, but when about to be used 
makes him resemble a gimlet in form. The instrument is 
very hard, and composed of two pieces, which he works up 



LETTERS FR03I THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. 83 

and down, like a pair of chisels. It is supposed that he 
makes this hole for the purpose of depositing an egg, and 
it is alleged that the tree upon which he once fastens him- 
self always falls to decay. 

But this allusion to insects reminds me of an incident 
connected with the ant which I lately noticed in one of my 
mountain rambles. While watching an ant-hill, I discov- 
ered that the little creatures were busily engaged in en- 
larging the hole of their miniature cavern. While watching 
their movements with intense interest, my eyes chanced to 
fall upon another detachment of the same insect, who were 
approaching the hole in question with the dead body of a 
grasshopper. The moment this party was discovered by 
those at the hole, the whole multitude fell to work and 
tumbled their dead booty along at a more rapid rate than 
before. On reaching the hole an attempt was made to 
drag the grasshopper into it, but without success, for it was 
too small. A movement to enlarge the hole was then im- 
mediately made, and in a very few moments the slain crea- 
ture was out of my sight, and I could almost fancy that I 
saw the ants clapping their tiny hands and congratulating 
themselves upon the feat they had accomplished. Upon 
the whole it was one of the most interesting little incidents 
that I ever witnessed, and I left the spot feeling that I un- 
derstood the words of Scripture which say, " Go to the ant, 
thou sluggard, and be wise !" 

And now, as the desultory character of this letter will 
probably fully satisfy my readers, I will bring it to a close, 
promising to be somewhat more circumspect in the future. 



LETTER XI. 

QuALLA Town, North Carolina, May, 1848. 1 
In coming from Franklin to this place, a distance of 
thirty miles, I travelled over a wild, mountainous, and thinly- 
settled country, where I was pained to witness the evil 
effects of intemperance, and made happy by following the 
windings of a beautiful river. Having been overtaken by 
a thunder-storm, I found shelter in a rude and comfortless 
cabin, which was occupied by a man and his wife and eight 
children. Every member of the family was barefooted, and 
one or two of the children almost destitute of clothing ; not 
one of the children, though one or two of them were full- 
grown girls, could read a single word ; the mother was 
sickly and haggard in her appearance, and one of the little 
boys told me that he had not eaten a hearty meal for ten 
days. I subsequently learned that the head of this house- 
hold was a miserable drunkard. 

The river to which I alluded is the Tuck-a-se-ja, which 
empties into the Tennessee. It is a very rapid stream, and 
washes the base of many mountains, which are as wild as 
they were a century ago. Whenever there occurs any in- 
terval land, the soil is very rich, and such spots are usually 
occupied. The mountains are all covered with forest, where 
wild game is found in abundance. The fact is, the people 
of this whole region devote more of their time to hunting 



LETTERS FROM THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. 85 

than they do to agriculture, which fact accounts for their 
proverbial poverty. You can hardly pass a single cabin 
without being howled at by half a dozen hounds, and I have 
now become so well educated in guessing the wealth of a 
mountaineer, that I can fix his condition by ascertaining the 
number of his dogs. A rich man seldom has more than one 
dog, while a very poor man will keep from ten to a dozen. 
And this remark with regard to dogs, strange as it may 
seem, is equally applicable to the children of the mountain- 
eers. The poorest man, without any exception, whom I 
have seen in this region, lives in a log cabin with two rooms, 
and is the father of nineteen children, and the keeper of six 
hounds. 

On my arrival in this place, which is the home of a large 
number of Cherokee Indians, (of whom I shall have much 
to say in future letters,) I became the guest of Mr. William 
H. Thomas, who is the " guide, counsellor, and friend" of 
the Indians, as well as their business agent. While con- 
versing with this gentleman, he excited my curiosity with 
regard to a certain mountain in his vicinity, and, having 
settled it in his own mind that I should spend a week or 
two with him and his Indians, proposed (first excusing him- 
self on account of a business engagement) that I should 
visit the mountain in company with a gentleman in his 
employ as surveyor. The proposed arrangement was car- 
ried out, and thus was it that I visited Smoky Mountain. 

This mountain is the loftiest of a large brotherhood 
which lie crowded together upon the dividing line between 
North Carolina and Tennessee. Its height cannot be less 
than five thousand feet above the level of the sea, for the 
road leading from its base to its summit is seven and a half 
miles long. The general character of the mountain is sim- 



86 LETTERS FROM THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. 

ilar to that already given of other Southern mountains, and 
all that I can say of its panorama is, that I can conceive of 
nothing more grand and imposing. It gives birth to a pair 
of glorious streams, the Pigeon river of Tennessee, and the 
Ocono lufty of North Carolina, and derives its name from 
the circumstance that its summit is always enveloped, on 
account of its height, in a blue or smoky atmosphere. 

But the chief attraction of Smoky Mountain is a sin- 
gular cliff known throughout this region as the Alum Cave. 
In reaching this spot, which is on the Tennessee side, you 
have to leave your horses on the top of the mountain, and 
perform a pedestrian pilgrimage of about six miles up and 
down, very far up and ever so far down, and over every 
thing in the way of rocks and ruined vegetation which Na- 
ture could possibly devise, until you come to a mountain 
side, which is only two miles from your starting place at 
the peak. Roaring along at the base of the mountain-side 
alluded to is a small stream, from the margin of which you 
have to climb a precipice, in a zigzag way, which is at least 
two thousand feet high, when you find yourself on a level 
spot of pulverized stone, with a rocky roof extending over 
your head a distance of fifty or sixty feet. The length of 
this hollow in the mountain, or " cave," as it is called, is 
near four hundred feet, and from the brow of the butting 
precipice to the level below the distance is perhaps one 
hundred and fifty feet. The top of the cliff is covered with 
a variety of rare and curious plants, and directly over its 
centre trickles a little stream of water, which forms a tiny 
pool, Uke a fountain in front of a spacious piazza. The 
principal ingredients of the rock composing this whitish 
cliff are alum, epsom salts, saltpetre, magnesia, and cop- 
peras, and the water which oozes therefrom is distinguished 



LETTERS FROM THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. 87 

for its strong medicinal qualities. This strange and almost 
inaccessible, but unquestionably very valuable cave, belongs 
to a company of neighboring Carolinians, who have already 
made some money out of the alum, but have not yet accom- 
plished much in the way of purifying and exporting the 
various products in which it abounds. 

The scenery upon which this cave looks down, how- 
ever, interested me quite as much as the cave itself From 
the most comprehensive point of view two mountains de- 
scend abruptly into a kind of amphitheatre, where the one 
on the right terminates in a very narrow and ragged ridge, 
which is without a particle of vegetation, while far beyond, 
directly in front of the cave, rises a lofty and pointed moun- 
tain, backed by some three or four of inferior magnitude. 
The ridge which I have mentioned is itself very high, but 
yet the cave looks down upon it, and it is so fantastic in its 
appearance that from different points of view you may dis- 
cover holes leading like windows entirely through it, while 
from other places you might fancy that you looked upon a 
ruined castle, a decayed battlement, or the shattered tower 
of an old cathedral. To gaze upon this prospect at the 
sunset hour, when the mountains were tinged with a rosy 
hue, and the immense hollow before me was filled with a 
purple atmosphere, and I could see the rocky ledge basking 
in the sunlight like a huge monster on the placid bosom of 
a lake, was to me one of the most remarkable and impres- 
sive scenes that I ever witnessed ; and then remember, too, 
that I looked upon this wonderful prospect from a frame- 
work of solid rock, composed of the stooping cliff. It was 
a glorious picture, indeed, and would have amply repaid one 
for a pilgrimage from the remotest corner of the earth. * 

The ordinary time required to visit the Alum Cave is 



88 LETTERS FROM THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. 

two days ; but, owing to bad weather, my friend and my- 
self occupied the most of four days in performing the same 
trip. To give a minute account of all that we met with 
would occupy too much time, and I will therefore only re- 
cord in this place the incidents which made the deepest 
impression on my own mind. 

Our first night from home we spent in the cabin of a 
man who treated us with the utmost kindness, and would 
not receive a penny for his pains. So much for mountain 
hospitality. And now, to prove that our friend was an in- 
telligent man, it may be mentioned that he is an adept in 
the following professions and trades, viz. those of medicine* 
the law, the blacksmith, th^e carpenter, the hunter, the shoe- 
maker, the watchmaker, the farmer, and he also seemed 
to possess an inkling of some half dozen sciences. Now, I 
do not exactly mean to assert that the gentleman is a mas- 
ter practitioner in all these departments of human learning 
and industry ; but if you were to judge of his ability by his 
use of technical words, you would not for a moment ima- 
gine he could have a competitor. But so it is in this wild 
region, one man has to perform the intellectual labor of a 
whole district ; and, what is really a hard case, the know- 
ledge which is thus brought to so good a market is nearly 
always the fruit of a chance education, and not of a sys- 
tematic one. 

Among those 'vyho spent the night with us under the 
roof of the above accomplished man, was one of the idle 
vagabonds of the country. This individual, it appears, had 
met with a singular accident on the day previous, and 
amused us by relating it. I regret that I cannot remember 
all the singular epithets that he employed, but 1 will do my 
best to report him faithfully : 



LETTERS FROM THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. 89 

" Now, the way the thing happened was this, and I reck- 
on you never heard sich hke afore. A lot of us fellers was 
out in 'Squire Jones's millpond a v ashing ourselves and 
swimming. Now, I allow this pond, in a common way, is 
nigh on to half a mile long ; but at this time they were 
draining the pond, and it warnt so very large. Wall, there 
was one spot, well nigh the middle — no, not exactly ; I 
reckon it was a little to the left — where the water poured 
out into a rale catarock. The fellers I was with got the 
devil in 'em, and offered to bet the tobaccer that I couldn't 
swim near the big hole in the dam without going through. 
I agreed, for I always counted myself a powerful swimmer. 
' made one try, and just touched the outside of the whirl- 
pool. The fellers laughed at me and said I couldn't come 
it. I knew they said what was not so, and I got mad. I 
tried it again, and went a bit nearer, when they yelled 
^^ut "again and said it was no go. By this time I was con- 
uderable perplexed, but I swore to myself I would have the 
.obaccer, and I made one more try. But this time I got 
tnto the whirlpool, and couldn't get out ; and, in less than 
1.0 time, the water wheeled my head round to the hole, 
8'd in I went quick as a streak. I went through the hole, 
■'bvut four or six feet long — no, I allow 'twas seven feet — 
aad fell into the surge below, and, in five minutes or so — 
p-zirhaps six — -I was on dry land, sound as a button. The 
joKe was on the fellers then, and when I told 'em to hand 
over my plunder, they said they would, and told me I looked 
like a big frog when I come out of the hole into the pool 
^eiow the dam." 

On the following morning we travelled to the foot of 
Smoky Mountain, and having obtained a guide, who hap- 
pened to be one of the proprietors of Alum Cave, we re- 
5* 



90 LETTERS FROM THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. 

sumed our journey. In the immediate vicinity of the cave 
"we came across an Indian camp, where were two Indians 
who were out bear-hunting. We were admitted under 
their bark roof, and with them spent the night, sleeping upon 
the ground. We remained a sufficient length of time to 
enjoy one supper and one breakfast ; the first was composed 
of corn bread and bear meat, and the second of trout (caught 
in a neighboring stream) and a corn cake fried in the fat 
of a bear. 

On questioning our Indian landlords, as we sat around 
our watch fire, with regard to the Alum Cave, I could only 
gather the fact that it was originally discovered by the fa- 
mous chief Yo-na-gus-ka, who happened in his youth to 
track a bear to one of its corners, where he had- a den. 
Disappointed on this score, I then turned to our guide to 
see what he could tell me about the cave that was not 
connected with its minerals, and the substance of his nar- 
rative was as follows : 

I hav'n't much to say about the cave that I knows of, 
excepting one or two little circumstances about myself and 
another man. The first time I come here it was with my 
brother and two Indians. The sight of this strange gash 
in the mountain and the beautiful scenery all around made 
me very excited, and I was for climbing on top, and no 
mistake. The Indians and my brother started with me up 
the ledge at the north end of the cave, but when we got 
up about half way, just opposite to an eagle's nest, where 
the creatures were screaming at a fearful rate, they all three 
of 'em backed down, and said I must not keep on. I told 
'em I was determined to see the top, and I would. I did 
get on top, and, after looking round a while and laughing 
at the fellows below, I began to think of going down again. 



LETTERS FROM THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. 9-1 

And then it was that I felt a good deal skeered. I found 
I couldn't get down the way I got up, so I turned about for 
a new place. It was now near sundown, and I hadn't yet 
found a place that suited me, and 1 was afraid I'd have to 
sleep out alone and without any fire. And the only way I 
ever got down was to find a pine tree that stood pretty 
close to a low part of the ledge, some three hundred yards 
from the cave, when I got into its top, and so came down 
among my friends, who said it was a wonder I hadn't been 
killed. 

" I generally have had to pilot all strangers to the cave 
since that time, and 1 remember one circumstance that 
happened to a Tennessee lawyer, who caused us a good 
deal of fun ; for there was a party of young gentlemen 
there at the time. We had a camp right under the cave, 
where it's always dry, and about midnight the lawyer I 
mentioned suddenly jumped up as we were all asleep, and 
began to yell in the most awful manner, as if something 
dreadful had happened. He jumped about as if in the 
greatest agony, and called on God to have mercy on him, 
for he knew he would die. O, he did carry on at a most 
awful rate, and we thought he must have been bitten by 
some snake or was crazy, so we tore off his clothes to see 
what was the matter ; and what do you suppose we found ? 
Nothing but a harmless little lizard, that had run up the 
poor man's legs, all the way up to his arm-pits, thinking, I 
suppose, that his clothes was the bark of a dead tree. After 
the trouble was all over, the way we laughed at the fellow 
was curious." 

Our second day at the Alum Cave (and third one from 
home) was a remarkably cheerless one ; for a regular snow- 
storm set in, mingled with hail, and, before we could reach 



92 LETTE&S FROM THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. 

our horses and descend the Smoky Mountain, some three 
or four inches of snow had fallen. We spent that night 
under the roof of our good friend and worthy man, the 
guide, and it was with difficulty that we could induce him 
to receive a quarter eagle for all his trouble in piloting us 
and treating us to his best fare. On that night we ate our 
supper at nine o'clock, and what rendered it somewhat pe- 
culiar was the fact that his two eldest daughters, and very 
pretty girls besides, waited upon us at table, holding above 
our heads a couple of torches made of the fat pine. That 
was the first time that I was ever waited upon in so regal 
a style, and more than once during the feast did I long to 
retire in a corner of the smoky and dingy cabin to take a 
sketch of the romantic scene. At sunrise on the following 
morning my companion and myself remounted our horses, 
and in three hours were eating our breakfast in Qualla 
Town. 



LETTER XII. 

QuALLA Town, North Carolina, May, 1848. 
Qualla Town is a name applied to a tract of seventy- 
two thousand acres of land, in Haywood county, which is 
occupied by about eight hundred Cherokee Indians and 
one hundred Catawbas. Their district is mountainous 
from one extremity to the other, and watered by a num- 
ber of beautiful streams, which abound in fish ; the valleys 
and slopes are quite fertile, and the lower mountains are 
well adapted to grazing, and at the same time are heavily 
timbered and supplied with every variety of game. This 
portion of a much larger multitude of aborigines, in consid- 
eration of their rank and age, and of valuable services ren- 
dered to the United States, were permitted by the General 
Government to remain upon their native soil, while the 
great body of the Cherokee nation were driven into exile. 
They (the exiles) amounted in all to more than sixteen 
thousand souls, eighteen liundred and fifty having died on 
their way to the ''promised land'' beyond the Mississippi. 
And here it may with propriety be added, that since the re- 
moval those in the West have gradually decreased in num- 
bers, while the remaining portion have steadily increased 
by births at the rate of four per cent, per annum. In ad- 
dition to the Indians above mentioned, it ought to be stated 
that there is a remnant of two hundred still remaining in 



94 LETTERS FROM THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. 

i 
the county of Cherokee ; of those, however, I know but 

httle, and therefore purpose to confine my remarks to those 

of Qualla Town alone. 

The Indians of this district, having formed themselves 
into a regular company, with appropriate regulations, they 
elected an old friend of theirs, named William H. Thomas, - 
(mentioned in my last letter,) to become their business chief, 
so that the connection now existing between the two parties 
is that of father and children. What the result of this ar- 
rangement has been will be fully understood when I come " 
to speak of the advance which the Indians have made in the 
march of civilization. As they are organized at the present 
time, the Qualla Town people are divided into seven clans, 
and to each clan is assigned what is called a town, over 
each of which presides a regular chief. The Cherokee 
nation was originally divided into seven clans, which were 
probably descended from certain noted families, and the old 
party feehng is still preserved with jealous care among their 
descendants in this vicinity. The names of the clans are : 
In-e-chees-quah, or Bird Clan ; In-egil-lohee, or Pretty-faced 
Clan ; In-e-wo-tah, or Paint Clan ; In-e-wah-he-yah, or 
Wolf Clan ; In-e-se-ho-nih, or Blue Clan ; In-e-co-wih, or 
Deer Clan; and In-e-eo-te-ca-wih, the meaning of which is 
not known. And among the customs which prevail among 
these clans is one which prevents their marrying among 
themselves, so that they have to select their wives from a 
neighboring fraternity. Formerly such marriages were pro- 
hibited by penalty of death. 

With regard to the extent of their civilization and their 
existing manner of life, the following may be looked upon 
as a comprehensive summary : About three-fourths of the 
entire population can read in their own language, and, 



LETTERS FROM THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. 95 

though the majority of them understand EngHsh, a very 
few can speak the language. They practise, to a con- 
siderable extent, the science of agriculture, and have ac- 
quired such a knowledge of the mechanic arts as answers 
them for all ordinary purposes, for they manufacture their 
own clothing, their own ploughs, and other farming uten- 
sils, their own axes, and even their own guns. Their 
women are no longer treated as slaves, but as equals ; the 
men labor in the fields, and their wives are devoted entirely 
to household employments. They keep the same domestic 
animals that are kept by their white neighbors, and culti- 
vate all the common grains of the country. They are pro- 
bably as temperate as any other class of people on the face 
of the earth, honest in their business intercourse, moral in 
their thoughts, words, and deeds, and distinguished for their 
faithfulness in performing the duties of religion. They are 
chiefly Methodists and Baptists, and have regularly ordained 
ministers, who preach to them on every Sabbath, and they 
have also abandoned many of their mere senseless super- 
stitions. They have their own courts and try their crimi- 
nals by a regular jury. Their judges and lawyers are 
chosen from among themselves. They keep in order the 
public roads leading through their settlement. By a law 
of the State they have the right to vote, but seldom exer- 
cise that right, as they do not like the idea of being identi- 
fied with any ol the political parties. Excepting on festive 
days, they dress after the manner of the white man, but 
far more picturesquely. They live in small log houses of 
their own construction, and have every thing they need or 
desire in the way of food. They are, in fact, the happiest 
community that I have yet met with in this Southern 
country, and no candid man can visit them without being 



96 LETTERS FROM THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. 

convinced of the wickedness and foolishness of that policy 
of the Government which has always acted upon the opin- 
ion that the red man could not be educated into a reasona- 
ble being. 

By way of giving my readers a correct idea of the pre- 
sent condition of the Carolina Cherokees I will describe a 
visit that I paid to one of their churches on the Sabbath. 
I was anxious to see how far they were advanced in the 
w^nys of Christian instruction, and, though I noticed many 
little eccentricities, I was, upon the whole, very much 
pleased with what I saw and heard. I was accompanied 
by Mr. Thomas, and we reached the rude but spacious log 
meeting-house about eleven o'clock. The first hour was. 
devoted to instructing the children from a Cherokee Cate- 
chism, and the chiefs of the several clans w^ere the officiating 
teachers. At twelve o'clock a congregation of some one 
hundred and fifty souls was collected, a large proportion of 
whom were women, who were as neatly dressed as could 
be desired, with tidy calico gowns, and fancy handkerchiefs 
tied over their heads. The deportment of all present was 
as circumspect and solemn as I have ever witnessed in any 
New England religious assembly. When a prayer was 
oflered they all fell upon their knees, and in singing all but 
the concluding hymn they retained their seats. Their form 
of w^orship was according to the Methodist custom, but in 
their singing there was a wild and plaintive sweetness 
which was very impressive. The w^omen and children as 
well as the men participated in this portion of the cere- 
rtiony, and some of the female voices reminded me of the 
caroling of birds. They sung four hymns ; three prayers 
v^ere offered by several individuals, and two sermons or 
exhortations were delivered. The prayers were short and 



LETTERS FROM THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. 97 

pointed, and, as the shortest might be considered a fair spe- 
cimen of the others, I will transcribe it for the edification 
of my readers : 

*' Almighty Lord, who art the father of the world, look 
down from heaven on this congregation. Bless the In- 
dians, and supply them with all the food and clothing they 
may want ; bless, also, the white men, and give them every 
thing they may need. Aid us all, O Lord, in all our good 
works. Take care of us through life, and receive us in 
heaven when the world shall be burnt up. We pray thee 
to take care of this young white man who has come to this 
Indian meeting. Protect him in all his travels, and go 
with him to his distant home, for we know by his kind 
words that he is a friend of the poor, ignorant, and perse- 
cuted Indian. Amen !" 

The first preacher who addressed the meeting was a 
venerable man. Big Chaidey, and he took for his text the 
entire first chapter of John ; but, before proceeding with 
his remarks, he turned to Mr. Thomas and wished to know 
if he should preach with the " linguister," or interpreter, for 
the benefit of the young stranger. I told him no ; but re- 
quested Mr. Thomas to take notes, and, through his kind- 
ness, it is now my privilege to print the substance of that 
Cherokee sermon. It was as follows : 

" In the beginning of creation, the world was covered 
with water. God spake the word and the dry land was 
m.ade. He next made the day and the night ; also, the sun, 
moon, and stars. He then made all the beasts and birds 
and fishes in the world, and was much pleased. He wanted 
some one to take care of all these creatures, and so he 
made man, and from his body a woman, to help him and 
be his companion. He put them into a beautiful garden, 



98 LETTERS FROM THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. 

which was filled with all kinds of good things to eat, but 
told them that there was one fruit they must not touch. 
That fruit was an apple, I believe. The woman was not 
grateful to God, and when a wicked serpent told her she 
might eat of the beautiful fruit which she was so curious 
to taste, she did eat of it, and gave some to the man, and 
he took some too. God talked with the man about his 
wicked conduct, and told him that he and his children 
should always have to work very hard for all they had to 
eat, so long as they lived in the world ; and to the woman, 
God said, she must always suffer very much when she had 
children, and that the man should be her master. The 
man and woman were then turned out of the beautiful gar- 
den, and they were the father and mother of all the Indians 
in the world, as well as the white men and the black men. 
They had a great many children, and the world was very 
full of people. The people were very wicked, and God 
warned a good man that he intended to destroy the \vorld 
by covering it all with water, and that this good man must 
build a large boat like a house, and get into it with his fa- 
mily, that they might not perish. The people laughed at 
this good man for believing such a story ; but he took into 
his house two kinds of all the animals in the world, and the 
waters came ; so the world was destroyed. After many 
days the good man sent out a dove to find some land, but 
it could not find any and came back. He sent it out again, 
and it never returned, and soon the great house rested on 
the top of a high mountain. Another race of people then 
covered the earth ; and a great many good men lived upon 
the earth. One of the greatest of them it was who received 
from God the ten commandments, which direct all men how 
to be good and happy ; but the world was yet very wicked. 



LETTERS FROM THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. 99 

Long after this, God sent into the world his only Son, 
whose name was Jesus Christ. This wonderful being it 
was who gave up his own life that all the wicked of the 
world might be saved, and the justice of God be satisfied ; 
and so it is, that all the Indians, as well as the white men, 
who live like Jesus Christ, can get to heaven when they 
die." 

In delivering his sermon the preacher occupied about 
thirty minutes ; and the above facts were cemented together 
by a great number of flowery expressions, which made it 
quite poetical. His manner was impressive, but not par- 
ticularly eloquent. After he had taken his seat, and a 
hymn had been sung, a young man stepped into the rude 
pulpit, who has distinguished himself by his eloquence. His 
name is Tekin-neb, or the Garden of Eden. He spoke from 
the same text, and his remarks bore chiefly on the redemp- 
tion by Christ. At the conclusion of his address he gave 
a sketch of his own religious experience, and concluded by 
a remarkably affecting appeal to his hearers. His voice, 
emphasis, and manner were those of a genuine orator, and 
his thoughts were poetical to an uncommon degree. In 
dwelling upon the marvellous love of the Saviour, and the 
great wickedness of the world, he was affected to tears, 
and when he concluded there was hardly a dry eye in the 
house. 

After the benediction had been pronounced, Mr. Thomas 
delivered a short address to the meeting on Temperance 
and a few secular matters, when the Indians quietly dis- 
persed to their several homes. I retired to my own tempo- 
rary home, deeply impressed by what I had seen and 
heard, for my pride had been humbled while listening to 
the rude savage, whose religious knowledge was evidently 
superior to my own. 



LETTER XIII. 

QiJALLA Town, North Carolina, May, 1848. 

The plan adopted for the civilization of the Carolina 
Cherokees differs materially from any others adopted in the 
United States. Their amusements are not interfered with, 
excepting when found to have an immoral or unhappy ten- 
dency. A goodly number of their more ridiculous games, 
however, they have abandoned of their own accord, but the 
manly game of hall-playing is still practised after the an- 
cient manner, with one or two restrictions. In the first 
place, they are not allowed to wager their property on the 
games, as of old, unless it be some trifle in the way of a 
woollen belt or cotton handkerchief, and they are prohibited 
from choking each other, and breaking their heads and legs, 
when excited, as was their habit in former times. Since 
my arrival here the Indians have had one of their ball 
games, and as it was gotten up especially for my edifica- 
tion, I made it a point of etiquette to be present at the 
preparatory dance and the game, as well as at the con- 
cluding ceremony, and these I will now endeavor to de- 
scribe. 

The preparatory or training dance took place on the 
night preceding the game, and none participated in it who 
were not to play on the following day. There were sixty 
young men present, besides the spectators, and they' met on 



LETTERS FROM THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. 101 

a grassy plot formed by a bend of a neighboring stream 
called Soco Creek. The dancers were stripped of every 
particle of clothing but their waistbands ; they made their 
own music, which was composed merely of a rapid succes- 
sion of whoops and shouts ; and they danced round a large 
blazing fire. The night in question was very beautiful, and 
when this strange group was looked upon by the light of 
the full moon, and the wild mountain scenery on every 
side, they presented a most romantic appearance indeed. 
They kept up the dance for over an hour, and, when it 
was concluded, all the men immediately ran towards a 
deep pool in the ice-cold stream, and without waiting 
for the perspiration to cool, plunged into the water, and, 
having finally emerged, started for their several homes. 
This dance, I am informed, had its origin in an ancient cus- 
tom, which compelled all the candidates for a game of ball 
to inure themselves to every hardship for ten days before 
the game took place, and during all that time they were to 
eat but little food, and were to refrain from gratifying any 
of their sensual appetites. 

On the morning of the game a large plain, lying be- 
tween two hills and directly in front of the Indian Court- 
house, (a large circular lodge, built of logs,) was divested 
of every stone and stick on its surface, and at ten o'clock 
the spectators began to assemble. These were composed 
of the old men of the nation, a large number of boys, and 
a still larger number of women and children. They were 
all dressed in their holiday attire, so that feathers, shawl 
turbans, scarlet belts, and gaudy hunting shirts were quite 
abundant ; and, scattered as they were in groups of from 
five to fifty on the hill sides and under ..e shadow of the 
trees, they presented a most picturesque appearance. Dur- 



102 LETTERS FROM THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. 

ing all this time the players had kept out of sight, and it 
was understood that the two parties were among the 
bushes, at the two ends of the plain, preparing themselves 
for the game. Under the direction of the presiding chief 
or game-director, two poles were now erected about six 
hundred yards apart, on either side of a given centre, and 
in this centre was placed the ball. From this point was 
the ball to be given to the players, and the party which first 
succeeded in throwing it outside of the pole belonging to 
their opponents to the number of twelve times were to be 
considered the winners. 

Every thing being ready, a shrill whoop was given from 
one end of the plain, and immediately answered by the op- 
posing party, when they all made their appearance, march- 
ing slowly to the centre, shouting and yelling as they passed 
along. Each party consisted of thirty splendidly formed 
young men, who were unincumbered by any clothing, save 
their common waistband,) and every individual carried in 
his hand a pair of ball sticks, made with a braided bag at 
one end. As the parties approached the centre, the lady- 
loves of the players ran out upon the plain and gave their 
favorite champions a variety of articles, such as belts and 
handkerchiefs, which they were willing to wager upon 
the valor of their future husbands. This little movement 
struck me as particularly interesting, and I was greatly 
pleased with the bashfulnesss and yet complete confidence 
with which the Indian maidens manifested their prefer- 
ences. 

When the several parties were assembled at the centre 
of the plain, each man selected his particular antagonist by 
placing his sticks at his rival's feet, after which the game- 
director delivered a long speech, wherein he warned them 



LETTERS FROM THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. 103 

to adhere to the existing regulations ; and, throwing the 
ball high up in the air, made his escape to one side of the 
plain, and the game commenced. As it proceeded, the 
players became greatly excited, and 1 noticed that the ball 
was never taken in hand until after it had been picked up 
by the spoony stick, but the expertness with which these 
movements were performed was indeed surprising. At 
one time the whole crowd of players would rush together 
in the most desperate and fearful manner, presenting, as 
they struggled for the ball, the appearance of a dozen gla- 
diators, striving to overcome a monster serpent ; and then 
again, as one man would secure the ball and start for the 
boundary line of his opponent, the races which ensued 
were very beautiful and exciting. Wrestling conflicts also 
occurred quite frequently, and it often seemed as if the 
players would break every bone in their bodies as they 
threw each other in the air, or dragged each other over 
the ground ; and many of the leaps, which single individu- 
als performed, were really superb. The exercise was of a 
character that would kill the majority of white men. The 
game lasted for about two hours, and the moment it was 
finished the entire body of players, while yet panting 
with excessive fatigue, made a rush for the neighboring 
river, and in a short time appeared on the plain in their 
usual garb, and the old chief who had held the stakes award- 
ed the prizes to the winning party. A short time after- 
wards the boys stripped themselves, and went through 
the same routine of playing as already described, when 
the ball-playing was at an end, and the people began 
to disperse with a view of getting ready for the evening 
dance. 

I employed the intervening time by going home with 



104 LETTERS FROM THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. 

one of the chiefs, and eating a comfortable supper in his 
log cabin. The habitation of this chief was made of hewn 
logs, and occupied a farm of twenty acres on the mountain 
side, about one-fourth of which was in a state of cultiva- 
tion, and planted with corn and potatoes. He had a tidy 
wife and several children, and his stock consisted of a pony, 
a cow, and some ten or a dozen sheep. At nine o'clock, I 
was again in the midst of a crowd of Indians, assembled 
at the court-house of the town. The edifice, so called, is 
built of hewn logs, very large and circular, without any 
floor but that of soHd earth, and without any seats but one 
short bench intended for the great men of the nation. In 
the centre of this lodge was a large fire, and the number of 
persons who figured in the several dances of the evening, 
was perhaps two hundred, all fantastically dressed, and in- 
cluding men, women, and boys. Each dancer made his 
own music, and, with one exception, the dances were of 
the common Indian sort. The exception alluded to was 
particularly fantastic, and called " the Pilgrim Dance." 
They came in with packs on their backs, with their faces 
strangely painted, and with gourds hanging at their sides, 
and the idea seemed to be to represent their hospitality to- 
wards all strangers who visited them from distant lands. 
The dancing continued until midnight, when the presiding 
chief addressed the multitude on the subject of their duties 
as intelligent beings, and told them to return to their several 
homes and resume their labors in the field and in the shops. 
He concluded by remarking that he hoped I was pleased 
with what I had witnessed, and trusted that nothing had 
happened which would make the wise men of my country 
in the East think less of the poor Indian than they did at 
the present time : and he then added that, according to an 



LETTERS FROM THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. 105 

anc ient custom, as I was a stranger they liked, the several 
chi efs had given me a name, by which I should hereafter 
be remembered among the Carolina Cherokees, and that 
name was Ga-taw-hough No-que-sih, or The Wandering 
Star. 



LETTER XIV. 

QuALLA Town, North Carolina, May, 1848. 

In the present letter I purpose to give you a brief his- 
torical account of certain celebrated Cherokee Indians, who 
are deservedly considered as among the bright particular 
stars of their nation. Some of them are dead, and some 
still living, but they w^ere all born in this mountain land, 
and it is meet that I should avv^ard to each a " passing par- 
agraph of praise." 

The first individual that I w^ould mention is Yo-na-gus- 
ka, or the Drowning Bear. He w^as the principal chief 
of the Qualla Indians, and died in the year 1838, in the 
seventy-fifth year of his age. When the Cherokees w^ere 
invited to remove west of the Mississippi in 1809, he peti- 
tioned President Jefferson that he might be permitted to 
remain with his followers, among his native mountains, and 
his prayer was granted. He was eminently a peace chief, 
but obstinately declined every invitation of the Government 
to emigrate, and would probably have shed his blood and 
that of all his warriors in defending his rights. When about 
sixty years of age he had a severe fit of sickness, which 
terminated in a trance ; this apparent suspension of all his 
faculties lasted about twenty-four hours, during which pe- 
riod he was supposed to be dead. It so happened, however, 
that he recovered, and on resuming his speech, told his at- 



LETTERS FROM THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. 107 

tendants that he had been to the spirit land, and held com- 
munion with his friends who had been long dead, that they 
were all very happy. He also stated that he had seen many 
white men, and that some of them appeared to be unhappy. 
The Great Spirit talked with him, and told him his time 
was not yet come to leave the w^orld ; that he had been a 
good and honest man, and that he must return to his peo- 
ple, and govern them with great care and affection, so that 
he might finally come and live with the Great Spirit for 
ever. 

Subsequently to that time his people gave him a new 
name, which was Yon-na-yous-ta, or How like an Indian. 
He governed his people like a father, and was universally 
beloved. It was at his suggestion that Mr. Thomas was 
adopted into the Cherokee nation ; the prominent reasons 
assigned for such a desire on his part being that Thomas 
had proved himself to be the Indian's friend, and was alone 
in the world, having no father or brother. Mr. Thomas 
exerted a great influence over him, and among the mea- 
sures which the former recommended was the adoption of 
a temperance society for the improvement of himself and 
people, who were all addicted to the intoxicating bowl. 
He was a true patriot at heart, and on being reasoned into 
a correct state of mind, he expressed his determination to 
create a reform. He first reformed himself, and then sum- 
moned a council of all his people, ostensibly but secretly, 
for the purpose of establishing a temperance society. At 
this council he made a speech to the effect that they knew 
he had been an intemperate man, and had discouraged the 
use of strong drink, which he was confident was rapidly 
annihilating his nation ; he expected to be with his people 
but a short time, and to extricate them from the great evil 



108 LETTERS FROM THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. 

he had mentioned was the real purpose of the Great Sph'it 
in prolonging his life ; he also spoke of the many evils to 
families and individuals resulting from intemperance ; and 
when he concluded, it is said that his entire audience were 
in tears. Taking advantage of this triumph, he called his 
scribe, (for he himself was an illiterate man,) and requested 
him to write these words upon a sheet of paper : '•' The 
undersigned drink no more whiskey;" to which pledge he 
requested that his name should be attached. Every mem- 
ber of the council appended his name to the paper, and 
thus was established the first temperance society among 
the Cherokees, which has already accomplished wonders. 
Among the regulations which he afterwards proclaimed, 
was one that each Indian should pay a fine of two shilhngs 
for every offence committed in breaking the pledge, and 
that the money thus collected should be expended in ex- 
tending the boundaries of their territory. And here it may 
be well to mention the fact, that though this " father of 
temperance " among the Indians had been extremely dissi- 
pated during a period of thirty years, he was never known, 
even in the way of medicine, to touch a drop of spirits after 
his first temperance speech. 

The reputation of Yo-na-gus-ka as an orator was co- 
extensive with his entire nation. He not only understood 
the art of working upon the feelings and clothing his 
thoughts in the most appropriate imagery, but the thoughts 
themselves were invariably sound, and his arguments un- 
answerable. From many examples of his reasoning I se- 
lect one. When once invited by the officers of Government 
to remove westward, even after he and his people had be- 
come citizenized, he was informed that in the West he 
would have an abundance of the most fertile land, with 



LETTERS FROM THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. 109 

plenty of game ; also a government of his own ; that he 
would be undisturbed by the whites, and that the United 
States Government would ever protect him from future 
molestation. In replying to this invitation, as he stood in 
the midst of armed soldiers, he remarked in substance as 
follows : '- 1 am an old man, and have counted the snows 
of almost eighty winters. My hair, which is now very 
white, was once like the raven's wing. I can remember 
when the white man had not seen the smoke of our cabins 
westward of the Blue Rido;e, and I have watched the es- 
tablishment of all his settlements, even to the Father of 
Waters. The march of the white is still towards the set- 
ting sun, and I know that he will never be satisfied until he 
reaches the shore of the great water. It is foolish in you 
to tell me that the whites will not trouble the poor Chero- 
kee in the Western country. The white man's nature and 
the Indian's fate tell a different story. Sooner or later one 
Government must cover the whole continent, and the red 
people, if not scattered among the autumn leaves, will be- 
come a part of the American nation. As to the white 
man's promises of protection, they have been too often 
broken ; they are like the reeds in yonder river — they are 
all lies. North Carolina had acknowledged our title to 
these lands, and the United States had guarantied that 
title ; but all this did not prevent the Government from 
taking aw^ay our lands by force ; and, not only that, but 
sold the very cow of the poor Indian and his gun, so as to 
compel him to leave his country. Is this what the white 
man calls justice and protection ? No, we will not go to 
the West. We wanted to become the children of North 
Carolina, and she has received us as such, and passed a law 
for our protection, and we will continue to raise our com 



110 LETTERS FROM THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. 

in this very land. The people of Carolina have always 
been very kind to us, and we know they will never oppress 
us. You say the land in the West is much better than it 
is here. That very fact is an argument on our side. The 
white man must have rich land to do his great business, 
but the Indian can be happy with poorer land. The white 
man must have a flat country for his plough to run easy, 
but we can get along even among the rocks on the moun- 
tains. We never shall do what you want us to do. I don't 
like you for your pretended kindness. I always advise my 
people to keep their backs for ever turned towards the set- 
ting sun, and never to leave the land of their fathers. I 
tell them they must live like good citizens ; never forget the 
kindness of North Carolina, and always be ready to help 
her in time of war. I have nothing more to say." 

When Yo-na-gus-ka was about to die, he summoned his 
chiefs and warriors by his bed-side, and talked to them at 
great length upon the importance of temperance, and in 
opposition to the idea of their emigrating to the West, and 
made them swear that they would never abandon the graves 
of their fathers, or his own grave, which is now marked by 
a pile of stones on the margin of the Soco. In personal ap- 
pearance he was very handsome, and left two wives. He 
was the owner of considerable property, and among his 
possessions ^vas an old negro named Cudjo. This man is 
now living, and on questioning him about his former mas- 
ter he replied : " If Yo-na-gus-ka had had larning, I b'lieve 
he'd been a very great man. He never allowed himself to 
be called master, for he said Cudjo was his brother, and not 
his slave. He was a great friend o' mine, and when he 
died, I felt as if I didn't care about living any longer my- 
self; but Yo-na-gus-ka is gone, and poor old Cudjo is still 
alive and well." 



LETTERS FROM THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. Ill 

The second character that I will introduce to my read- 
ers is now living in Qualla Town. His name is Salola, or 
the Squirrel. He is quite a young man, and has a remark- 
ably thoughtful face. He is the blacksmith of his nation, 
and with some assistance supplies the whole of Qualla 
Town with all their axes and ploughs ; but what is more, 
he has manufactured a number of very superior rifles and 
pistols, including stock, barrel, and lock ; and he is also the 
builder of grist-mills, which grind all the corn which his 
people eat. A specimen of his workmanship, in the way 
of a rifle, may be seen at the Patent-Office, in Washington, 
where it was deposited by Mr. Thomas ; and I believe Sa- 
lola is the first Indian who ever manufactured an entire 
gun. But, when it is remembered that he never received 
a particle of education in any of the mechanic arts, but is 
entirely self-taught, his attainments must be considered truly 
remarkable. 

That he labors under every disadvantage in his most 
worthy calling, may be show by the fact that he uses a 
flint-stone for an anvil, and a uater-hlast for a bellows. In 
every particular he is a most worthy man, and though una- 
ble to speak the English tongue, is a very good scholar in 
his own language. He is the husband of a Catawba wo- 
man, whom he married before he could speak one word of 
her own tongue, or she could speak Cherokee ; but they have 
now established a language of their own, by which they get 
along very well. Salola, upon the whole, is an honor to the 
country, and one whose services in some iron or steel estab- 
lishment of the eastern cities would be of great value. Is 
there not some gentleman in Philadelphia or New- York 
who would take pleasure in patronizing this mechanical 
prodigy of the wilderness ? 



112 LETTERS FROM THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. 

Another of the characters I intended to mention is 
named Euchella. He is a very worthy chief, and now in 
the afternoon of his days. He is quite celebrated among 
his people as a warrior, but is principally famous for im- 
portant services rendered by him to the United States 
Government during the Cherokee troubles. He, and a 
band of one hundred followers, first attracted public atten- 
tion by evading, for upwards of a whole year, the officers 
of Government who had been commanded to remove the 
party beyond the Mississippi. It having been ascertained, 
however, that Euchella could not easily be captured, and 
would never submit to leave his country, it was determined 
that an overture should be made, by which he and his 
brotherhood of warriors could be secured to assist the 
whites in their troublesome efforts to capture three Indians 
who had murdered a number of soldiers. The instrument 
employed to effect a reconciliation was the Indian trader, 
Mr. Thomas, who succeeded in appointing a meeting with 
Euchella on a remote m )untain-top. 

During this interview , Mr. Thomas remonstrated with 
Euchella, and told him that, if he would join the whites, he 
might remain in Carolina, and be at peace. "I cannot be 
at peace," replied the warrior, "because it is now a whole 
year that your soldiers have hunted me like a wild deer. I 
have suffered from the white man more than I can bear. I 
had a wife and a little child — a brave, bright-eyed boy — 
and because I would not become your slave, they were left 
to starve upon the mountains. Yes ; and I buried them 
with my own hand, at midnight. For a whole week at a 
time have I been without bread myself, and this in my own 
country too. I cannot bear to think upon my wrongs, and 
I scorn your proposition." It so happened, however, that 



LETTERS FROM THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. 113 

he partially relented, and having submitted the proposition 
to his warriors, whom he summoned to his side by a whoop, 
they agreed to accept it, and from that time Euchella be- 
came an ally of the army. It was by the efforts of Eu- 
chella and his band that the murderers already mentioned 
were arrested and punished. They had been condemned 
by a court martial, and sentenced to be shot, and the scorn 
of death manifested by one of them, named Charlej^ is 
worth recording. He had been given into the hands of 
Euchella, and when he was tied to the tree,, by one arm, 
w^here he was to die, (to which confinement he submitted 
without a murmur,) he asked permission to make a few re- 
marks, which was of course granted, and he spoke as fol- 
lows : " And is it by your hands, Euchella, that I am to 
die ? We have been brothers together ; but Euchella has 
promised to be the white man's friend, and he must do his 
duty, and poor Charley is to suffer because he loved his 
country. O, Euchella ! if the Cherokee people now beyond 
the Mississippi carried my heart in their bosoms, they never 
would have left their beautiful native land — their own moun- 
tain land. I am not afraid to die ; O, no, I want to die, for 
my heart is very heavy, heavier than lead. But, Euchella, 
there is one favor that I would ask at your hands. You 
know that I had a little boy, who was lost among the moun- 
tains. I want you to find that boy, if he is not dead, and 
tell him that the last words of his father were that he must 
never go beyond the Father of Waters, but die in the land 
of his birth. It is sweet to die in one's own country, and 
to be buried by the margin of one's native stream." After 
the bandage had been placed over his eyes, a little delay 
occurred in the order of execution, when Charley gently 
raised the bandage, and saw a dozen of Euchella's warriors 
6* 



114 LETTERS FROM THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. 

in the very act of firing ; he then replaced the cloth, with- 
out manifesting the least anxiety or moving a muscle, and in 
a moment more the poor savage was weltering in his blood. 
And so did all three of the murderers perish. 

Another name, famous in the unwritten annals of Chero- 
kee history, is that of an Indian named Guess, who was the 
inventor of the Cherokee alphabet. This alphabet contains 
eighty-six characters, each one of which represents a dis- 
tinct sound. It can be acquired, by an apt scholar, in the 
course of ten days, and is now the foundation of the Chero- 
kee literature. Guess died at the West in the year 1842. 

The individual who translated the New Testament was 
an educated Indian, named Elias Boudinot, who lost his 
life by the hand of an Indian assassin. At the time of his 
death he was engaged upon a translation of the Bible, and 
was cut down in the midst of his usefulness, in 1839, merely 
because he had the fearlessness and the honesty to disagree 
with a majority of the Arkansas Cherokees in regard to a 
certain treaty. John Ridge, also an educated Indian, and 
his father, Major Ridge, were brave and honorable men, 
who were the friends of Boudinot, and like him perished 
by the hands of assassins, at the same time and for the 
same cause. The elder Ridge acted a conspicuous part in 
the battle of the Horse-Shoe, in the Creek war ; while the 
younger Ridge was mainly distinguished for his intelligence 
and the happy influence of his life and good works. 



LETTER XV. 

AsHviLLE, North Carolina, May, 1848. 
The distance from Qualla Town to this, place is sixty 
nniles. The first half of the route is exceedingly mountain- 
ous and almost entirely uncultivated, but the valley of Pigeon 
river, down v^^hich you have to travel for a considerable dis- 
tance, is very fertile and v^ell cultivated. A pastoral charm 
seems to rest upon the scenery, and in this particular forci- 
bly reminded me of the upper valley of the Mohav^k. I 
occupied the most of tw^o days in performing this trip, and 
the only incident that I met with which was at all unique, 
was upon this wise. I had stopped at a farm-house to take 
my dinner. It so happened that my host was about to erect 
a new barn, and some twenty of his neighbors were assem- 
bled for the purpose of raising the framework to its proper 
position. An abundance of whiskey had already been im- 
bibed by a few of this rustic company, and among these was 
one individual who had recently been grossly cheated in pur- 
chasing a horse from a Tennessee horse-dealer. He had 
given a mule and twenty dollars for the stranger's gelding, 
and, though the animal was quite respectable in appearance, 
it had turned out to be old, unsound, and almost without a 
redeeming quality. The individual in question was noted 
for making a fool of himself when intoxicated, and on this 
occasion he was determined to prove true to himself. At 



116 LETTERS FROM THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. 

this time his horse speculation seemed to weigh heavily 
upon his mind, and in his vehement remarks he took par- 
ticular pains to curse the entire State of Tennessee, in- 
cluding President Polk. The poor man finally became so 
completely excited that he swore he would whip the first 
man he met on the road who happened to be from Tennes- 
see ; and so the matter rested. In about thirty minutes 
thereafter, as fortune would have it, a man made his ap- 
pearance on the road, apparently from the West ; and in 
jeering their noisy companion, the farmers remarked that 
"now he would have a chance to revenge himself" The 
excitement of the horse-bitten speculator was consequently 
greatly increased, and when the stranger reached the hill- 
top he was accosted as follows : 

"May I ask you, sir, if you come from Tennessee?" 
" I do. What will you have ?" replied the stranger. 
The Carolinian then related his trading story, which he 
concluded by carefully reiterating the determination he had 
made. The stranger laughed at the idea, and was about to 
resume his journey, when the reins of his horse were seized, 
and he found that it was indeed necessary for him to fight 
his way out of the queer scrape. All remonstrance on his 
part was in vain ; but at the very moment the fight was to 
commence, another horseman rode up, who was also inter- 
rogated as to his native State. His presence had a ten- 
dency to suspend hostilities ; but when it was ascertained 
that he was only a Kentuckian, the Carolinian insisted upon 
going on with his business. The feelings of the Kentuckian 
were now enlisted, and he declared his intention of regu- 
lating the fight; whereupon he made a large ring, and taking 
out of his pocket a couple of pistols, he told the combatants 
" to go ahead," and at the same time warned the bystand- 



LETTERS FROM THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. 117 

ers that he would shoot the first man that interfered. The 
conclusion of the whole matter was, that the intoxicated 
man received a cruel thrashing for his ridiculous conduct, 
and the two gentlemen from the West quietly resumed their 
several journeys. 

On my way to this place, I stopped for a few hours at 
Deaver's Sulphur Springs, which are about four miles from 
the French Broad river, on the road to Clarksville, Georgia. 
This is one of the most popular watering-places in the 
South, not only on account of the medicinal qualities of the 
water, but on account of the surrounding scenery, which is 
remarkably interesting, and also for the additional reason 
that the style in which people are entertained is well wor- 
thy of even such places as Saratoga. The several build- 
ings connected with the establishment usually accommodate 
about two hundred families during the summer months, and 
they are chiefly from the cities of Charleston and Savannah. 
The people of Eastern North Carolina do not seem to know 
that they have such a delightful retreat within their borders^ 
which, to a man of genuine taste, is as far ahead of Sara- 
toga as a mountain stream is ahead of a canal. 

With regard to Ashville, I can only say that it is a very 
busy and pleasant village, filled with intelligent and hospi- 
table inhabitants, and is the centre of a mountain land, 
where Nature has been extremely liberal and tasteful in 
piling up her mighty bulwarks for the admiration of man. 
Indeed, from the summit of a hill immediately in the vi- 
cinity of the village, I had a southwestern view which 
struck me as eminently superb. It was near the sunset 
hour, and the sky was flooded with a golden glow, which 
gave a living beauty to at least a hundred mountain peaks, 
from the centre of which loomed high towards the zenith 



118 LETTERS FROM THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. 

Mount Pisgah and the Cold Mountain, richly clothed in 
purple, which are from twenty to thirty miles distant, and 
not far from six thousand feet in height. The middle dis- 
tance, though in reality composed of wood-crowned hills, 
presented the appearance of a level plain or valley, where 
columns of blue smoke were gracefully floating into the up- 
per air, and whence came the occasional tinkle of a bell, as 
the cattle wended their way homeward, after roaming among 
the unfenced hills. Directly at my feet lay the little 
town of Ashville, like an oddly-shaped figure on a green 
carpet ; and over the whole scene dwelt a spirit of repose, 
which seemed to quiet even the comm.on throbbings of the 
heart. 

My first expedition on arriving here was to a gorge in 
the Blue Ridge called the Hickory Nut Gap. How it 
came by that name 1 cannot imagine, since the forests in 
this particular region, so far as I could ascertain, are almost 
entirely destitute of the hickory tree. It is true that for a 
distance of four miles the gorge is watered by a brook 
called after the hickory nut, but I take it that this name is 
a borrowed one. The entire length of the gap is about 
nine miles, and the last five miles are watered by the Rocky 
Broad River. The upper part of this stream runs between 
the Blue Ridge proper and a spur of the Blue Ridge, and 
at the point where it forces a channel through the spur its 
bed is exceedingly rocky, and on either hand, until it 
reaches the middle country of the State, it is protected by 
a series of mountain blufis. That portion of the gorge 
which might be called the gateway is at the eastern ex- 
tremity. From any point of view this particular spot is 
remarkably imposing, the gap being not more than half a 
mile wide, though appearing to narrow down to a few bun- 



LETTERS FROM THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. 119 

dred yards. The highest bluff is on the south side, and, 
though rising to the height of full twenty-five hundred feet, 
it is nearly perpendicular, and midway up its front stands 
an isolated rock, looming against the sky, which is of a cir- 
cular form, and resembles the principal turret of a stupen- 
dous castle. The entire mountain is composed of granite, 
and a large proportion of the bluff in question positively 
hangs over the abyss beneath, and is as smooth as it could 
possibly be made by the rains of uncounted centuries. 
Over one portion of this superb cliff, falling far down 
into some undiscovered and apparently unattainable pool, 
is a stream of water, which seems to be the offspring of 
the clouds ; and in a neighboring brook near the base of 
this precipice are three shooting waterfalls, at the foot of 
which, formed out of the solid stone, are three holes, which 
are about ten feet in diameter and measure from forty to 
fifty feet in depth. But, leaving these remarkable features 
entirely out of the question, the mountain scenery in this 
vicinity is as beautiful and fantastic as any 1 have yet wit- 
nessed among the Alleghanies. At a farm-house near the 
gap, where I spent a night, I had the pleasure of meeting 
an English gentleman and tourist, and he informed me that, 
though he had crossed the Alps in a number of places, yet 
he had never seen any mountain scenery which he thought 
as beautiful as that of the Hickory Nut Gap. My best 
view of the gorge was from the eastward, and just as the 
sun, with a magnificent retinue of clouds, was sinking di- 
rectly in the hollow of the hills, and as I gazed upon the 
prospect, it seemed to me, as was in reality the case, that I 
stood at the very threshold of an almost boundless wilder- 
ness of mountains. 

Before visiting this remarkable passage through the 



120 LETTERS FROM THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. 

mountains, I endea,vored to ascertain, from the Cherokees 
of Qualla Town, its original Indian name, but without suc- 
ceeding. It was my good fortune, however, to obtain a 
romantic legend connected therewith. I heard it from the 
lips of a Chief who glories in the two names of All Bones 
and Flying Squirrel, and, though he occupied no less than 
two hours in telHng the story, I will endeavor to give it to 
my readers in about five minutes. 

There was a time when the Cherokees were without 
the famous Tso-lungh, or tobacco weed, with which they 
had previously been made acquainted by a wandering 
stranger from the far East. Having smoked it in their 
large stone pipes, they became impatient to obtain it in 
abundance. They ascertained that the country where it 
grew in the greatest quantities w^as situated on the big 
waters, and that the gateway to that country (a mighty 
gorge among the mountains) was perpetually guarded by 
an immense number of little people or spirits. A council 
of the bravest men in the nation was called, and, while 
they were discussing the dangers of visiting the unknown 
country, and bringing therefrom a large knapsack of the 
fragrant tobacco, a young man stepped boldly forward and 
said that he would undertake the task. The young warrior 
departed on his mission and never returned. The Chero- 
kee nation were now in great tribulation, and another 
council was held to decide upon a new measure. At this 
council a celebrated magician rose and expressed his wil- 
lingness to relieve his people of their difficulties, and in- 
formed them that he would visit the tobacco country and 
see what he could accomplish. He turned himself into a 
mole, and as such made his appearance eastward of the 
mountains ; but, having been pursued by the guardian 



LETTERS FROM THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. 121 

spirits, he was compelled to return without any spoil. He 
next turned himself into a humming-bird, and thus suc- 
ceeded, to a very limited extent, in obtaining what he 
needed. On returning to his country, he found a number 
of his friends at the point of death, on account of their in- 
tense desire for the fragrant weed ; whereupon he placed 
some of it in a pipe, and, having blown the smoke into the 
nostrils of those who were sick, they all revived and were 
quite happy. The magician now took it into his head that 
he would revenge the loss of the young warrior, and at the 
same time become the sole posssessor of all the tobacco in 
the unknown land. He therefore turned himself into a 
whirlwind, and in passing through the Hickory Nut Gorge 
he stripped the mountains of their vegetation, and scattered 
huge rocks in every part of the narrow valley ; whereupon 
the little people were all frightened away, and he was the 
only being in the country eastward of the mountains. In 
the bed of a stream he found the bones of the young war- 
rior, and having brought them to life, and turned himself 
into a man again, the twain returned to their own country 
heavily laden with tobacco ; and ever since that time it 
has been very abundant throughout the entire land. 



LETTER XVI. 

AsHviLLE, North Carolina, May, 1848. 
I HAVE just returned from an excursion down the French 
Broad River to Pattons Warm Springs, and the neigh- 
boring curiosities, and I now purpose to describe the " won- 
ders I have seen " The original Indian name of the French 
Broad was Pse-li-co, the meaning of which I have not 
been able to ascertain. Its English name was derived from 
a famous hunter named Freiich. It is one of the princi- 
pal tributaries of the Tennessee, about one hundred miles 
long, from one to two hundred yards wide, and, taking its 
rise in the Blue Ridge near the border of South Carolina, 
runs in a northwestern direction. Judging of the whole, 
by a section of fifty miles, lying westward of Ashville, it 
must be considered one of the most beautiful rivers in this 
beautiful land. In running the distance above mentioned 
it has a fall of nearly fifteen hundred feet, and its bed seems 
to be entirely composed of solid rock. In depth it varies 
from five to fifteen feet, and, generally speaking, is quite 
clear, abounding in a great variety of plebeian fish. Its 
shores are particularly wild and rocky, for the most part 
nearly perpendicular, varying from one to four hundred 
feet in height, and, though usually covered with vegetation, 
they present frequent cliffs of granite, freestone, and blue 
limestone, which actually droop over the rushing waters 



LETTERS FROM THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. 123 

and present a most imposing appearance. With regard to 
its botanical curiosities, it can safely be said that a more 
fruitful and interesting valley can nowhere be found in the 
Union. Here we have not only every variety of Ameri- 
can forest trees, but bushes, plants, flowers, and vmes in 
the greatest profusion, and of the most vigorous growth ; 
many of the grape vines, which weigh down the mighty 
sycamore, seem to be long enough, and strong enough, to 
link together a hundred ships of war. When it is remem- 
bered, too, that the air is constantly heavy with the fra- 
grance of flowers, and tremulous with the perpetual roar 
of tlie stream, it may be readily imagined that a ride down 
the French Broad is a unique pleasure. Back of the river 
on either side the country is hilly and somewhat culti- 
vated, but its immediate valley contains nothing that 
smacks of civilization but a turnpike road, and an occa- 
sional tavern. This road runs directly along the water's 
edge nearly the entire distance, and, on account of the 
quantity of travel which passes over it, is kept in admirable 
repair. It is the principal thoroughfare between Tennessee 
and South Carolina, and an immense number of cattle, 
horses, and hogs are annually driven over it to the seaboard 
markets. Over this road also quite a large amount of 
merchandise is constantly transported for the merchants 
of the interior, so that mammoth wagons, with their eight 
and ten horses, and their half-civilized teamsters, are as 
plenty as blackberries, and aflbrd a romantic variety to the 
stranger. 

In riding down the French Broad, I overtook a gentle- 
man on horseback, who accompanied me about twenty 
miles. Immediately after the first salutation was passed, 
and he had ascertained that I was from the eastward, he 



124 LETTERS FROM THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. 

questioned me with regard to the latest news from China. 
I was surprised at the question, and after telHng him 
I had none to communicate, I could not refrain from ask- 
ing him what was the secret of his interest in that remote 
Empire. He repHed that he resided on the French Broad, 
and was a dealer in ginseng. I had heard of the article 
before, and knew that it was found in abundance through- 
out this mountain region. My friend described it as a 
beautiful plant, with one stem and some twenty leaves at 
the top, and growing to the height of eighteen inches. 
That portion of it, however, which is prepared for market 
is the root. The Chinese are the only people in the world 
who make any use of it whatever ; but with them it has 
been an article of commerce from time immemorial. It is 
said to be associated in some way or other with an unex- 
plained superstition. Formerly it was obtained exclusively 
from Tartary, and the Tartars were in the habit of saying 
that they could never find it, excepting by shooting a magic 
arrow, which invariably fell where the plant was abundant. 
It is not thought to possess any valuable medicinal quality, 
and only has the effect of strengthening the sensual appe- 
tite. It is used in the same manner that we use tobacco, 
and to the tongue it is an agreeable bitter. It has been an 
article of export from this country for half a century, and 
the most extensive American shippers reside in Philadelphia. 
It is sold for about sixty cents the pound, and my travelling 
companion told me that his sales amounted to about forty 
thousand dollars per annum. What an idea ! that even 
the celestials are dependent upon the United States for 
one of their cherished luxuries, and that luxury a common 
unnoticed plant of the wilderness ! Ours is, indeed, " a 
great country." 



LETTERS FROM THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. 125 

I come now to speak of the Warm Springs, which are 
thirty- six miles from Ashville, and within six of the Ten- 
nessee Hne. Of the Springs themselves there are some half 
dozen, but the largest is covered with a house, and divided 
into two equal apartments, either one of which is suffi- 
ciently large to allow of a swim. The temperature of the 
water is 105 degrees, and it is a singular fact that rainy 
weather has a tendency to increase the heat, but it never 
varies more than a couple of degrees. All the springs are 
directly on the southern margin of the French Broad ; the 
water is clear as crystal, and so heavy that even a child 
may be thrown into it with Httle danger of being drowned. 
As a beverage the water is quite palatable, and it is said 
that some people can drink a number of quarts per day, 
and yet experience none but beneficial effects. The dis- 
eases which it is thought to cure are palsy, rheumatism, 
and cutaneous affections ; but they are of no avail in curing 
pulmonic or dropsical affections. The Warm Springs are 
annually visited by a large number of fashionable and sickly 
people from all the Southern States, and the proprietor has 
comfortable accommodations for two hundred and fifty 
people. His principal building is of brick, and the ball- 
room is 230 feet long. Music, dancing, flirting, wine- 
drinking, riding, bathing, fishing, scenery-hunting, bowling, 
and reading, are all practised here to an unlimited extent ; 
but, what is more exciting than all these pleasures put to- 
gether, is the rare sport of deer-hunting ; and hereby " hangs 
a tale " to which 1 must devote a separate paragraph. 

My polite landlord had intimated his intention of afford- 
ing me a little sport, and immediately after a twelve o'clock 
dinner, on a certain day, he stepped out upon his piazza and 
gave two or three blasts with a small horn, the result of 



126 LETTERS FROM THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. 

which was, that, in about fifteen minutes, a negro mounted 
on a handsome horse made his appearance, accompanied 
by some twenty yelping hounds. The horn was next 
handed to the negro, and he was requested to go to a cer- 
tain spot on the mountains, about three miles off, and put 
the dogs out after a deer. Two hours having elapsed, the 
landlord, his son, and myself each took a rifle, and, after 
riding some three miles up the French Broad, we stationed 
ourselves at different points for the purpose of welcoming 
the deer, which was expected to take to the water on the 
opposite side. We had scarcely been ten minutes in our 
hiding places before the loud baying of the hounds was 
heard, as they were coming down one of the mountain ra- 
vines, and in another instant a very large buck (with his 
horns as yet only about a foot long) plunged into the rapid 
stream. Instead of crossing the water, however, he made 
his way directly down the river, now swimming and now 
leaping, with the entire pack of hounds directly in his 
foamy wake. It was evident that he considered himself 
hard pressed, and, though now approaching a very rocky 
fall in the stream, he gave himself to the current and went 
over, and it seemed as if he must inevitably perish. But 
another call was immediately made upon our sympathies, for 
we discovered the entire pack of hounds passing into the 
same hell of waters. We remained in suspense, however, but 
a few moments, for we saw the pursued and the pursuers all 
emerge from the foam entirely unharmed, and still strug- 
gling in the race. Now the deer took to an island, and 
then to another, and now again to the water, and away did 
the whole pack speed down the river. By this time the 
buck was evidently becoming tired, and certain of being 
overtaken ; and, having reached a shallow place in the 



LETTERS FROM THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. 127 

river, he turned upon the dogs and stood at bay. His 
movements during this scene were indeed superb, and I 
could not but pity the noble fellow's condition. His suffer- 
ings, however, were of short duration, for, while thus stand- 
ing in full front of his enemies, the landlord's son sent a 
ball through his heart from the shore, and with one frightful 
leap the monarch of the mountains was floating in a crim- 
son pool. The mounted negro now made his appearance, 
as if by magic, and, having waded and swam his horse to 
the dead deer, took the creature in tow, brought him to 
the land, threw him upon his horse, and so ended the after- 
noon deer-hunt. 

About six miles from the Warm Springs, and directly 
on the Tennessee line, are located a brotherhood of perpen- 
dicular cliffs, which are known as the Painted Rocks. They 
are of limestone, and rise from the margin of the French 
Broad to the height of two, three and four hundred feet. 
They are of a yellowish cast, owing to the drippings of a 
mineral water, and in form as irregular and fantastic as can 
well be imagined. They extend along the river nearly a 
mile, and at every step present new phases of beauty and 
grandeur. Taken separately, it requires but a trifling effort 
of the fancy to find among them towers, ramparts and 
moats, steeples and domes in great abundance ; but when 
taken as a whole, and viewed from the opposite bank of 
the river, they present the appearance of a once magnifi- 
cent city in ruins. Not only are they exceedingly beauti- 
ful in themselves, but the surrounding scenery is highly at- 
tractive, for the mountains seem to have huddled them- 
selves together for the purpose of looking down upon and 
admiring the winding and rapid stream. With regard to 
historical and legendary associations, the Painted Rocks 



128 LETTERS FROM THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. 

are singularly barren ; in this particular, however, they are 
like the entire valley of the French Broad, where relics of a 
by-gone people are few and far between. The rugged as- 
pect of this country would seem to imply that it was never 
regularly inhabited by the Indians, but was their hunting 
ground ; and what would appear to strengthen this idea is 
the fact that it is, even at the present day, particularly fa- 
mous for its game. 

On the day that I returned from my trip down the French 
Broad the weather was quite showery, and the consequence 
was, the rain was occasionally employed as an apology for 
stopping and enjoying a quiet conversation w4th the people 
on the road. At one of the places where I halted there was 
a contest going on between two Whigs concerning the 
talents of the honorable gentleman who represents the fa- 
mous county of Buncombe in Congress. The men were 
both strongly attached to the representative, and the con- 
test consisted in their efforts to excel each other in compli- 
menting their friend, and the climax of the argument seemed 
to be that Mr. Clingman was not " some pumpkins," but 
"pumpkins." The strangeness of this expression attracted 
my attention, and when an opportunity offered I questioned 
the successful disputant as to the origin and meaning of 
the phrase he had employed, and the substance of his reply 
I might give you if it was of a nature to interest the reader. 
At another of the houses where I tarried for an hour, it 
was my fortune to arrive just in time to witness the con- 
clusion of a domestic quarrel between a young husband 
and his wife. On subsequently inquiring into the history 
of this affectionate couple, I obtained the following parti- 
culars : The young man was reported to be a very weak- 
minded individual, and ever since his marriage had been 



LETTERS FROM THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. 129 

exceedingly jealous of his wife, who (as I had seen) was 
quite beautiful, but known to be perfectly true to her hus- 
band. Jealousy, however, was the rage of the man, and 
he was constantly uiaking himself very ridiculous. His 
wife remonstrated, but at the same time appreciated his 
folly, and acted accordingly. On one occasion she was 
politely informed by her husband that he was very unhappy, 
and intended to hang himself " Very well," replied the 
wife, " I hope you will have a good time." The husband 
was desperate, and having obtained a rope, and carefully 
adjusted a certain stool, he slipped the former over his 
head, and, when he knew that his wife was looking on, he 
swung himself to a cross-beam of his cabin. In playing his 
trick, however, he unfortunately kicked over the stool, 
(which he had placed in a convenient spot for future use in 
regaining his feet,) and was well nigh losing his life in re- 
ality, but was saved by the timely assistance of his wife. 
His first remark on being cut down was, " Jane, won't 
you please go after the doctor : I've twisted my neck 
dreadfully." 

I also picked up, while travelling along the French 
Broad, the following bit of history connected with one of 
the handsomest plantations on said river. About forty 
years ago a young girl and her brother (who was a mere 
boy) found themselves in this portion of North Carolina, 
strangers, orphans, friendless, and with only the moneyed 
inheritance of one hundred and fifty dollars. With this 
money the girl bought a piece of land, and, her little bro- 
ther having died, she hired herself out as a housekeeper. 
In process of time she married, gave her little property into 
the keeping of her husband, who squandered it, died a 
drunkard, and left her without a penny. By the kindness 
7 



130 LETTERS FROM THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. 

of a friend she borrowed a couple of hundred dollars, and 
came to Ashville and opened a boarding-house. In the 
course of five years she made ten thousand dollars, married 
a second time, and by the profligacy and death of her se- 
cond husband again lost every penny of her property. 
Years elapsed, and the unceasing industry of the poor w^i- 
dow was recompensed by the smiles of fortune, and she is 
now the owner of a large and valuable plantation, which 
is the fruit of her own individual toil, and a number of 
strong and manly sons are the comforts of her old age. 
But enougn ! I am now in Ashville, and at, the conclusion 
of my letter. 



LETTER XVII. 

AsHviLLE, North Carolina, May, 1848. 
Twenty-five miles from this place, in a northerly di- 
rection, stands Black Mountain, which is the gloomy look- 
ing patriarch of the Alleghanies, and claimed to be the 
most elevated point of land eastward of the Mississippi. 
It is nearly seven thousand feet high, and, with its nume- 
rous pinnacles, covers an area of territory which must mea- 
sure in length a distance of at least twenty miles. Unlike 
its fellows in this Southern land, it is covered with a dense 
forest from base to summit, where may be found nearly 
every variety of American trees, from the willow and the 
elm, to the oak and the Canada fir ; and it is the parent of 
at least a hundred streams. Not a rood of its rocky and 
yet fertile surface has ever been cultivated, and its chief 
inhabitants are the panther, the bear, and the deer. Almost 
its only human denizen is one Frederick Burnet, a " migh- 
ty hunter," who is now upwards of forty years of age, and 
is said to have slain between five hundred and six hundred 
bears upon this mountain alone. To obtain an adequate 
idea of its height and grandeur, it should be viewed from at 
least a dozen points of the compass, and with regard to the 
circular and apparently boundless panorama which it com- 
mands, it can be far better imagined than described. On 
questioning one of the wild natives of the region as to the 



132 LETTERS FROM THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. 

character of this prospect, he replied : " Good God ! sir, it 
looks down upon every seaport in the United States, and 
across the whole of Mexico." On learning this truly re- 
markable circumstance, my curiosity was of course ex- 
cited, and I questioned my informant as to the facilities of 
looking off from the peak. " Directly on the highest point," 
said he, " stands a single fir-tree w^hich you have to climb, 
and thus look down on all creation.'' " And how do you 
reach the summit ?" I continued. " O ! it's a very easy 
matter, stranger ; you only have to walk about six miles, 
and right straight uji the roughest country you ever 
did see.'' 

With this intelligence I was fully satisfied, and there- 
upon concluded that I should waste none of my strength 
merely for the privilege of " climbing a tree," even though 
it were the most elevated in the land. One of my Ash- 
ville friends, however, to whom I had brought letters of in- 
troduction, spoke to me of the Black Mountain in the most 
enthusiastic terms, said that I ought to visit it, and added 
that he had gotten up a party of one dozen gentlemen, in- 
cluding himself, who were resolved upon visiting the foot 
of the mountain in my company. They were described as 
lovers of scenery, anglers, and hunters, and it was proposed 
that we should go on horseback, though accompanied by a 
kind of tender, consisting of a small wagon load of provi- 
sions, fishing-rods, and guns, which was to be under the 
especial charge of an old negro named Sam Drymond. I 
was of course delighted with this arrangement, and, as the 
expedition was accomplished to the satisfaction of all con- 
cerned, I will give an account of its principal incidents. 

Our cavalcade started at the break of day, and, as Miss 
Fortune would have it, in what we imagined a morning 



LETTERS FROM THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. 133 

shower. It so happened, however, that it rained almost 
without ceasing until we reached our place of destination, 
which was a log shantee not far from the base of the Black 
Mountain, and about six miles from its summit. Our course 
lay up the valley of the Swannanoah, which, in spite of the 
rain, I could not but admire for its varied beauties. This 
river rises on the Black Mountain, is a charming tributary 
of the French Broad, from five to twenty yards in width, 
cold and clear, very rapid, and throughout its entire length 
is overshaded by a most luxuriant growth of graceful and 
sweet-scented trees and vines. The plantations on this 
stream are highly cultivated, the surrounding scenery is 
mountainous, graceful, and picturesque, and among the 
small but numerous waterfalls which make the first half of 
its course exceedingly romantic, may be enjoyed the finest 
of trout fishing. 

To describe the appearance of our party as we ascended 
the Swannanoah, through the mud and rain, were quite 
impossible, without employing a military phrase. We 
looked more like a party of " used up" cavaliers, returning 
from an unfortunate siege, than one in pursuit of pleasure ; 
and in spite of our efforts to be cheerful, a few of our faces 
were lengthened to an uncommon degree. Some of our 
company were decided characters, and a variety of profes- 
sions were represented. Our captain was a banker, highly 
intelligent, and rode a superb horse ; our second captain 
was a Lambert-like gentleman, with scarlet Mexican 
cloak : we had an editor with us, whose principal append- 
age was a long pipe ; there was also a young physician, 
wrapped up in a blue blanket ; also a young graduate, en- 
veloped in a Spanish cloak, and riding a beautiful pony ; 
also an artist, and then a farmer or two ; also a merchant ; 



134 LETTERS FROM THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. 

and last of all came the deponent, with an immense plaid 
blanket wrapped round his body, and a huge pair of boots 
hanging from his legs, whose romantic appearance was 
somewhat enhanced by the fact that his horse was the 
ugliest in the country. Long before reaching our place of 
destination, a freshet came pouring down the bed of the 
Swannanoah, and, as we had to ford it at least twenty 
times, we met with a variety of mishaps, which were par- 
ticularly amusing. The most unique incident, however, 
was as follows : The party having crossed a certain ford, 
a motion was made that we should wait and see that old 
Drymond made the passage in safety. We did so, and 
spent about one hour on the margin of the stream, in a 
most impatient mood, for the old man travelled very slowly, 
and the clouds were pouring down the rain'most abundant- 
ly. And what greatly added to our discomfort was the 
fact, that our horses got into a cluster of nettles, which 
made them almost unmanageable. In due time the negro . 
made his appearance, and plunged into the stream. Hardly 
had he reached the middle, before his horse became unruly, 
and having broken entirely loose from the wagon, disap- 
peared down the stream, leaving the vehicle in a most dan- 
gerous position, near the centre thereof, with a tremendous 
torrent rushing on either side, and the poor negro in the attitude 
of despair. He was indeed almost frightened to death ; but his 
woe-begone appearance was so comical, that in spite of his 
real danger, and the prayer he offered, the whole party burst 
into a roar of laughter. One remark made by the negro 
was this : " O Massa, dis is de last o' poor old Drymond — 
his time's come." But it so happened that our old friend 
was rescued from a watery grave : but I am compelled to 
state that our provisions, which were now transferred, with 



LETTERS FROM THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. 135 

old Drymond, on the back of the horse, were greatly dam- 
aged, and we resumed our journey, with our spirits at a 
much lower ebb than the stream which had caused the 
mishap. 

We arrived at a vacant cabin on the mountain, our place 
of destination, about noon, when the weather became clear, 
and our drooping spirits were revived. The cabin stood on 
the margin of the Swannanoah, and was completely hemmed 
in by immense forest trees. Our first movement was to 
fasten and feed the horses ; and having satisfied our own 
appetites with a cold lunch, a portion of the company went 
a fishing, while the remainder secured the services of the 
hunter Burnet, and some half dozen of his hounds, and en- 
deavored to kill a deer. At the sunset hour the anglers 
returned with a lot of two or three hundred trout, and the 
hunters with a handsome doe. With this abundant supply 
of forest delicacies, and a few "knick-knacks" that we had 
brought with us, we managed to get up a supper of the 
first water, but each man was his own cook, and our fingers 
and hands were employed in the place of knives and plates. 
While this interesting business was going on we dispatched 
Burnet after a fiddler, who occupied a cabin near his own, 
and when the musical gentleman made his appearance, we 
were ready for the "evening's entertainment." 

We devoted two hours to a series of fantastic dances, 
and when we became tired of this portion of the frolic, we 
spent an hour or so in singing songs, and wound up the 
evening by telling stories. Of the hundred and one that 
were related, only two were at all connected with the 
Black Mountain, but as these were Indian legends, and 
gathered from difierent sources, by the gentlemen present, 
I will preserve them in this letter for the edification of those 



136 LETTERS FROM THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. 

interested in such matters. On the north side of Black 
Mountain there was once a cave, where all the animals in 
the world were closely confined ; and before that time they 
had never been known to roam over the mountains as 
they do now. All these animals were in the keeping of 
an old Cherokee chief. This man, who had a mischievous 
son, often came home w^ith a fine bear or deer, but would 
never tell his son or any other person where he found so 
much valuable game. The son did not like this, and on 
one occasion when his father went out after food he hid 
himself among the trees, and watched his movements. He 
saw the old man go to the cave, already mentioned, and, 
as he pushed away a big stone, out ran a fine buck, which 
he killed with an arrow, and then rolled back the stone. 
When the old man was gone home with his deer the boy 
went to the cave, and thought that he w^ould try his luck 
in killing game. He rolled away the stone, when out 
jumped a wolf, which so frightened him that he forgot to 
replace the stone, and, before he knew what he was about, 
all the animals made their escape, and were fleeing down 
the mountain in every possible direction. They made a 
dreadful noise for a while, but finally came together in pairs, 
and so have continued to multiply down to the present 
time. When the father found out what the foolishness of his 
son had accomplished, he became very unhappy, and in less 
than a week he disappeared, and was never heard of again. 
The boy also became very unhappy, and spent many days 
in trying to find his father, but it was all in vain. As a 
last resort he tried an old Indian experiment which con- 
sisted in shooting arrows, to find out in which direction the 
old man had gone. The boy fired an arrow towards the 
north, but it returned and fell at his feet, and he knew that 



LETTERS FR03I THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. 137 

his father had not travelled in that direction. He also fired 
one towards the east and the south and the west, but they 
all came back in the same manner. He then thought that 
he w^ould fire one directly above his head, and it so hap- 
pened that this arrow never returned, and so the boy knew 
that his father had gone to the spirit land. The Great 
Spirit was angry with the Cherokee nation, and to punish 
it for the offence of the foolish boy he tore away the 
cave from the side of the Black Mountain, and left only 
a large cliff in its place, which is now a conspicuous 
feature, and he then declared that the time would come 
when another race of men should possess the mountains 
where the Cherokees had flourished for many genera- 
tions. 

Another legend was as follows : Once, in the olden 
times, wdien the animals of the earth had the power of 
speech, a red deer and a terrapin met on the Black Moun- 
tain. The deer ridiculed the terrapin, boasted of his own 
fleetness, and proposed that the twain should run a race. 
The creeping animal assented to the proposition. The race 
was to extend from the Black Mountaki to the summit of 
the third pinnacle extending to the eastward. The day 
w^as then fixed, and the animals separated. During the in- 
tervening time the cunning terrapin secured the services of 
three of its fellows resembling itself in appearance, and 
having given them particular directions, stationed them 
upon the several peaks over which the race was to take 
place. The appointed day arrived, and the deer, as well 
as the first mentioned terrapin, were faithfully on the ground. 
All things being ready, the word was given, and away 
started the deer at a break-neck speed. Just as he reached 
the summit of the first hill he heard the shout of a terrapin, 
7* 



138 LETTERS FROM THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. 

and as he supposed it to be his antagonist, he was greatly- 
perplexed, but continued on his course. On reaching the 
top of the second hill, he heard another shout of defiance, 
and was more astonished than ever, but onward still did 
he continue. Just before reaching the summit of the 
third hill, the deer heard what he supposed to be the same 
shout, and he gave up the race in despair. On return- 
ing to the starting place, he found his antagonist in a 
calm and collected mood, and, when he demanded an ex- 
planation, the terrapin solved the mystery, and then begged 
the deer to remember that mind could sometimes ac- 
complish what was often beyond the reach of the swiftest 
legs. 

With regard to the manner in which our party spent 
the night at the foot of Black Mountain, I can only say 
that we slept upon the floor, and that our saddles were our 
only pillows. The morning of the next day we devoted 
to an unsuccessful hunt after a bear, and a portion of us 
having thrown the fly a sufficient length of time to load 
old Drymond with trout, we all started on our return to 
Ashville, and reached the village just as the sun was sink- 
ing behind the western mountains. 



LETTER XVIIL 

North Cove, North Carolina, June, 1848. 
I NOW write from a log cabin situated on the Catawba 
river, and in one of the most beautiful of valleys. My 
ride from Ashville to Burnsville, a distance of over forty 
miles, was unattended by a single interesting incident, and 
afforded only one mountain prospect that caused me to rein 
in my horse. But the prospect alluded to embraced the 
entire outline of Bald Mountain, which, being one of the 
loftiest in this section of country, and particularly bar- 
ren, presented a magnificent appearance. On the extreme 
summit of this mountain is a very large and an intensely 
cold spring of water, and in its immediate vicinity a small 
cave and the ruins of a log cabin, which are associated with 
a singular being named David Greer, who once made this 
upper world his home. He first appeared in this country 
about fifty years ago ; his native land, the story of his birth, 
and his early history, were alike unknown. Soon after his 
arrival among the mountains, he fell desperately in love 
with the daughter of a farmer, but his suit was rejected by 
the maiden, and strenuously opposed by all her friends. 
Soon after this disappointment the lover suddenly disap- 
peared, and was subsequently found residing on Bald 
Mountain in the cave already mentioned. Here he lived 
the life of a literary recluse, and is said to have written a 



140 LETTERS FROM THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. 

singular work upon religion, and another which purported 
to be a treatise on human government. In the latter pro- 
duction he proclaimed himself the sole proprietor of Bald 
Mountain, and made it known to the world that all who 
should ever become his neighbors must submit to the laws 
he had himself enacted. The prominent actions of his life 
were " few and far between," but particularly infamous. 
The first that brought him into notice was as follows : 
A few years after it was ascertained that he had taken pos- 
session of this mountain, the authorities of the county sent 
a messenger to Greer, and demanded a poll-tax of seventy- 
five cents. The hermit said he would attend to it on the 
next court-day, and his word was accepted. On the day 
in question Greer punctually made his appearance, but, in- 
stead of paying over the money, he pelted the windows of 
the court-house with stones, and drove the judges, lawyers, 
and clients all out of the village, and then, with rifle in 
hand, returned to his mountain dwelling. For some months 
after this event he amused himself by mutilating all the 
cattle which he happened to discover on what he called his 
domain, and it is said was in the habit of trying the power 
of his rifle by shooting down upon the plantations of his 
neighbors. The crowning event of David Greer's life, 
however, consisted in his shooting to the ground in cold 
blood, and in the broad daylight, a man named Higgins. 
The only excuse that he offered for committing this murder 
was that the deceased had been found hunting for deer on 
that portion of land which he claimed as his own. For 
this offence Greer was brought to trial and acquitted on the 
ground of insanity. When this decision was made known, 
the criminal was greatly enraged, and, when released, 
started for his cabin, muttering loud and deep curses 



LETTERS FROM THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. 141 

against the injustice of the laws. In process of time a 
number of attempts were made to take his hfe, and it was 
a common occurrence with him to be awakened at mid- 
night by a ball passing through the door of his cabin. After 
living upon the mountain for a period of twenty years, he 
finally concluded to abandon his solitary life, and took up 
his abode in one of the settlements on the Tennessee side 
of Bald Mountain. Here, for a year or two, he worked 
regularly in an iron forge, but having had a dispute with a 
fellow- workman, swore that he would shoot him within five 
hours, and started after his rifle. The offending party was 
named Tompkins, and after consulting with his friends as 
to what course he ought to pursue, in view of the uttered 
threat, he was advised to take the law in his own hands. 
He took this advice, and, as David Greer was discovered 
walking along the road with rifle in hand, Tompkins shot 
him through the heart, and the burial-place of the hermit is 
now unknown. Public opinion was on the side of Tomp- 
kins, and he was never summoned to account for the defen- 
sive murder he had committed. 

In coming from Burnsville to this place, I enjoyed two 
mountain landscapes, which were supremely beautiful and 
imposing. The first was a northern view of Black Moun- 
tain from the margin of the South Toe river, and all its 
cliff's, defiles, ravines, and peaks seemed as light, dream- 
like, and airy as the clear blue world in which they floated. 
The stupendous pile appeared to have risen from the earth 
with all its glories in their prime, as if to join the newly- 
risen sun in his passage across the heavens. The middle 
distance of the landscape was composed of two wood- 
crowned hills which stood before me like a pair of loving 
brothers, and then came a luxuriant meadow, where a 



142 LETTERS FROM THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. 

noble horse was quietly cropping his food ; while the im- 
mediate foreground of the picture consisted of a marvel- 
lously beautiful stream, which glided swiftly by, over a 
bed of golden and scarlet pebbles. The only sounds that 
fell upon my ear, as I gazed upon this scene, were the 
murmurings of a distant water-fall, and the hum of insect 
wings. 

The other prospect that I witnessed was from the sum- 
mit of the Blue Ridge, looking in the direction of the Ca- 
tawba. It was a wilderness of mountains, whose founda- 
tions could not be fathomed by the eye, while in the 
distance, towering above all the peaks, rose the singular 
and fantastic form of the Table Mountain. Not a sign of 
the breathing human world could be seen in any direction, 
and the only living creature which appeared to my view 
was a solitary eagle, wheeling to and fro far up towards 
the zenith of the sky. 

From the top of the Blue Ridge I descended a winding 
ravine four miles in length, where the road, even at mid-day, 
is in deep shadow, and then I emerged into the North Cove. 
This charming valley is twelve miles long, from a half to a 
whole mile in width, completely surrounded with moun- 
tains, highly cultivated, watered by the Catawba, and in- 
habited by intelligent and worthy farmers. At a certain 
house where I tarried to dine on my way up the valley, 1 
was treated in a manner that would have put to the blush 
people of far greater pretensions ; and, what made a deep 
impression on my mind, was the fact that I was waited 
upon by two sisters, about ten years of age, who were re- 
markably beautiful and sprightly. One of them had flaxen 
hair and blue eyes, and the other deep black hair and 
eyes. Familiar as I had been for weeks past with the 



LETTERS FROM THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. 143 

puny and ungainly inhabitants of the mountain tops, these 
two human flowers filled my heart with a delightful 
sensation. May the lives of those two darlings be as 
peaceful and beautiful as the stream upon which they 
live ! The prominent pictorial feature of the North Cove 
is of a mountain called tlie Hawk^s Bill, on account 
of its resemblance to the beak of a mammoth bird, the 
length of the bill being about fifteen hundred feet. It 
is visible from nearly every part of the valley, and to 
my fancy is a more picturesque object than the Table 
Mountain, which is too regular at the sides and top to 
satisfy the eye. The table part of this mountain, however, 
is twenty-five hundred feet high, and therefore worthy of 
its fame. 

The cabin where I am stopping at the present time is 
located at the extreme upper end of the North Cove. It is 
the residence of the best guide in the country, and the most 
convenient lodging place for those who would visit the 
Hawk's Bill and Table Mountains, already mentioned, as 
well as the Lindville Pinnacle, the Catawba Cave, the Cake 
Mountain, the Lindville Falls, and the Roan Mountain. 

The Lindville Pinnacle is a mountain peak, surmounted 
by a pile of rocks, upon which you may recline at your 
ease, and look down upon a complete series of rare and 
gorgeous scenes. On one side is a precipice which seems 
to descend to the very bowels of the earth ; in another 
direction you have a full view of Short-off Mountain, 
only about a mile off, which is a perpendicular precipice 
several thousand feet high, and the abrupt termination of a 
long range of mountains ; in another direction still the eye 
falls upon a brotherhood of mountain peaks which are par- 
ticularly ragged and fantastic in their formation — now 



144 LETTERS FR03I THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. 

shooting forward, as if to look down into the valleys, and 
now looming to the sky, as if to pierce it with their pointed 
summits ; and in another direction you look across what 
seems to be a valley from eighty to a hundred miles wide, 
which is bounded by a range of mountains that seem to 
sweep across the world as with triumphal march. 

The Catawba Cave, situated on the Catawba river, is 
entered by a fissure near the base of a mountain, and is re- 
puted to be one mile in length. It has a great variety of 
chambers, which vary in height from six to twenty feet ; its 
walls are chiefly composed of a porous limestone, through 
which the water is continually dripping ; and along the en- 
tire length flows a cold and clear stream, which varies 
from five to fifteen inches in depth. This cave is indeed a 
curious aflfair, though the trouble and fatigue attending a 
thorough exploration far outweigh the satisfaction which 
it affords. But there is one arm of the cave which has 
never been explored, and an admirable opportunity is there- 
fore offered for the adventurous to make themselves famous 
by revealing some of the hidden wonders of nature. 

The Ginger Cake Mountain derives its very poetical 
name from a singular pile of rocks occupying its extreme 
summit. The pile is composed of two masses of rock of 
different materials and form, which are so arranged as to 
stand on a remarkably small base. The lower section is 
composed of a rough slate stone, and its form is that of an 
inverted pyramid ; but the upper section of the pile con- 
sists of an oblong slab of solid granite, which surmounts 
the lower section in a horizontal position, presenting the 
appearance of a work of art. The lower section is thirty 
feet in altitude, while the upper one is thirty-two feet in 
length, eighteen in breadth, and nearly two feet in thick- 



LETTERS FROM THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. 145 

ness. The appearance of this rocky wonder is exceedingly 
tottleish, and though we may be assured that it has stood 
upon that eminence perhaps for a thousand years, yet it is 
impossible to tarry within its shadow without a feeling of 
insecurity. The individual who gave the Ginger Cake 
Mountain its outlandish name was a hermit named Watson, 
who resided at the foot of the mountain about fifty years 
ago, but w^ho died in 1816. He lived in a small cabin, and 
entirely alone. His history was a mystery to every one 
but himself, and, though remarkably eccentric, he was noted 
for his amiability. He had given up the world, like his 
brother hermit of the Bald Mountain, on account of a dis- 
appointment in love, and the utter contempt which he 
ever afterwards manifested for the gentler sex, was one of 
his most singular traits of character. Whenever a party 
of ladies paid him a visit, which was frequently the case, 
he invariably treated them politely, but would never speak 
to them ; he even went so far in expressing his dislike as 
to consume for firewood, after the ladies were gone, the 
topmost rail of his yard-fence, over which they had been 
compelled to pass, on their way into his cabin. That old 
Watson " fared sumptuously every day" could not be denied, 
but whence came the money that supported him no one 
could divine. He seldom molested the wild animals of the 
mountain where he lived, and his chief employments seem- 
ed to be the raising of peacocks, and the making of garments 
for his own use, which were all elegantly trimmed off with 
the fathers of his favorite bird. The feathery suit in which 
he kept himself constantly arrayed he designated as his cul- 
gee ; the meaning of which word could never be ascertain- 
ed ; and long after the deluded being had passed away from 
among the living he was spoken of as Culgee Watson, and 
is so remembered to this day. * 



146 LETTERS FROM THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. 

I come now to speak of the Lindmlle Falls, which are 
situated on the Lindville river, a tributary of the beautiful 
Catawba. They are hterally embosomed among mountains, 
and long before seeing them do you hear their musical roar. 
The scenery about them is as wild as it was a hundred 
years ago — not even a pathway has yet been made to guide 
the tourist into the stupendous gorge where they reign su- 
preme. At the point in question the Lindville is about one 
hundred and fifty feet broad, and though its waters have 
come down their parent mountains at a most furious speed, 
they here make a more desperate plunge than they ever 
dared to attempt before^ when they find themselves in a 
deep pool and suddenly hemmed in by a barrier of gray 
granite, which crosses the entire bed of the river. In their 
desperation, however, they finally work a passage through 
the solid rock, and after filling another hollow with foam, 
they make a desperate leap of at least one hundred feet, and 
find a resting place in an immense pool, which one might 
easily imagine to be bottomless. And then, as if attracted 
by the astonishing feats performed by the waters, a number 
of lofty and exceedingly fantastic cliffs have gathered them- 
selves together in the immediate neighborhood, and are ever 
peering over each other's shoulders into the depths below. 
But as the eye wanders from the surrounding cliffs, it falls 
upon an isolated column several hundred feet high, around 
which are clustered in the greatest profusion the most beau- 
tiful of vines and flowers. This column occupies a conspic- 
uous position a short distance below the Falls, and it were 
an easy matter to imagine it a monument erected by Na- 
ture to celebrate her own creative power. 

With aliberal hand, indeed, has she planted her forest trees 
in every imaginable place ; but with a view of even sur- 



LETTERS FROM THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. 147 

passing herself, she has filled the gorge with a variety of 
caverns, which astonish the beholder, and almost cause him 
to dread an attack from a brotherhood of spirits. But how 
futile is my effort to give an adequate idea of the Lindville 
Falls and their surrounding attractions ! When I attempted 
to sketch them I threw away my pencil in despair ; and I 
now feel that I should be doing my pen a kindness, if I 
were to consume what I have written. I will give this 
paragraph to the world, however, trusting that those who 
may hereafter visit the Lindville Falls, will award to me a 
little credit for my will if not for my deed. 

To be in keeping with my wayward wanderings in this 
Alpine wilderness, it now becomes my duty to speak of the 
Roan Mountain and the Grand Father. By actual mea- 
surement the former is only seventy feet lower than the 
Black Mountain, and consequently measures well nigh to 
seven thousand feet. It derives its name from the circum- 
stance that it is often covered with snow, and at such 
times is of a roan color. It lies in the States of North Ca- 
rolina and Tennessee, and has three prominent peaks, 
which are all entirely destitute of trees. The highest of 
them has a clearing containing several thousand acres, and 
the cattle and horses of the surrounding farmers resort to it 
in immense numbers, for the purpose of feeding upon the 
fine and luxuriant grass which grows there in great abun- 
dance. The ascent to the top of this peak is gradual from 
all directions except one, but on the north it is quite per- 
pendicular, and to one standing near the brow of the 
mighty cliff the scene is exceedingly imposing and fearful. 
That it commands an uninterrupted view of what appears 
to be the entire world, may be readily imagined. When I 
was there I observed no less than three thunder storms 



148 LETTERS FROM THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. 

performing their uproarious feats in three several valleys, 
while the remaining portions of the lower world were en- 
joying a deep blue atmosphere. In visiting Roan Moun- 
tain you have to travel on horseback, and, by starting at 
the break of day, you may spend two hours on the highest 
peak, and be home again on the same evening about the 
sunset hour. 

In accounting for the baldness which characterizes the 
Roan Mountain, the Catawba Indians relate the following 
tradition : There was once a time when all the nations of 
the earth were at war with the Catawbas, and had pro- 
claimed their determination to conquer and possess their 
country. On hearing this intelligence the Catawbas be- 
came greatly enraged, and sent a challenge to all their ene- 
mies, and dared them to a fight on the summit of the Roan. 
The challenge was accepted, and nolens than three famous 
battles were fought — the streams of the entire land were 
red with blood, a number of tribes became extinct, and the 
Catawbas carried the day. Whereupon it was that the 
Great Spirit caused the forests to wither from the three 
peaks of the Roan Mountain where the battles were fought ; 
and wherefore it is that the flowers which grow upon this 
mountain are chiefly of a crimson hue, for they are nou- 
rished by the blood of the slain. 

One of the finest views from the Roan Mountain is that 
of the Grand Father, which is said to be altogether the 
wildest and most fantastic mountain in the whole Alleghany 
range. It is reputed to be 5,000 feet high, and particularly 
famous for its black bears and other large game. Its prin- 
cipal human inhabitants, par excellence, for the last twenty 
years, have been a man named Jim Riddle, and his loving 
spouse, whose cabin was near its summit. A more sue- 



LETTERS FROM THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. 149 

cessful hunter than Jim never scaled a precipice ; and the 
stories related of him would fill a volume. One of the fun- 
niest that I now remember, is briefly as follows : — 

He w^as out upon a hunting expedition, and having 
come to one of his bear traps, (made of logs, weighing 
about a thousand pounds, and set with a kind of figure 
four,) the bait of which happened to be misplaced, he 
thoughtlessly laid down his gun, and went under the trap 
to arrange the bait. In doing this, he handled the bait 
hook a little too roughly, and was consequently caught in 
the place of a bear. He chanced to have a small hatchet 
in his belt, with which, under every disadvantage, he suc- 
ceeded in cutting his way out. He was one day and one 
night in doing this, however, and his narrow escape caused 
him to abandon the habit of swearing, and become a reli- 
gious man. 

To the comprehension of Jim Riddle, the Grand Father 
was the highest mountain in the world. He used to say 
that he had read of the Andes, but did not believe that they 
were half as high as the mountain on which he lived. His 
reason for this opinion was, that when a man stood on the 
top of the Grand Father, it was perfectly obvious that " all 
the other mountains in the world lay rolling from it, even to 
the sky." 

Jim Riddle is said to have been a remarkably certain 
marksman ; and one of his favorite pastimes, in the winter, 
was to shoot at snow-balls. On these occasions, his loving 
wife, Betsey, was always by his side, to laugh at him when 
he missed his ma,rk, and to applaud when successful. And 
it is reported of them, that they were sometimes in the 
habit of spending entire days in this elevated recreation. But 



150 LETTERS FROM THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. 

enough ; Jim Riddle is now an altered man. His cabin 
has long since been abandoned, and he has become a tra- 
velUng preacher, and is universally respected for his amia- 
bility, and matter-of-fact intelligence. 



LETTER XIX. 

Elizabethton, Tennessee, June, 1848. 
The prominent circumstance attending my journey 
from the North Cove to this place was, that it brought me 
out of the great mountain wilderness of Georgia and North 
Carolina into a well-cultivated and more level country. 
For two months past have I spent my days on horseback, 
and the majority of my nights in the rudest of cabins ; and 
as I am now to continue my journey in a stagecoach, it is 
meet that I should indite a general letter, descriptive of the 
region through which I have passed. In coming from Dah- 
lonega to this place, I have travelled in a zigzag course up- 
wards of four hundred miles, but the intervening distance, 
in a direct line, would not measure more than two hun- 
dred. The entire country is mountainous, and for the 
most part remains in its original state of nature. To the 
botanist and the geologist, this section of the Union is un- 
questionably the most interesting eastward of the Missis- 
sippi, for we have here nearly every variety of forest trees 
known in the land, as well as plants and flowers in the 
greatest abundance, while the mountains, which are of a 
primitive formation, abound in every known variety of 
minerals. That the scenery of this region is highly inter- 
esting, I hope my readers have already been convinced. 
More beautiful streams can nowhere be found on the face 



152 LETTERS FROM THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. 

of the earth. But, when we come to speak of lake scenery, 
the South must yield the palm to the North. Not a single 
sheet of water deserving the name of lake have I yet seen 
in this Southern land, and yet every mountain seems to be 
well supplied with the largest and the coldest of springs. 
I know not but this fact has been explained by our scien- 
tific men, but to me it is indeed a striking peculiarity. The 
valleys, too, of this region, are remarkably narrow, and the 
majority of them might with more propriety be called im- 
mense ravines. The skies, however, which canopy this 
Alpine land, appeared to me to be particularly blue, and as 
to the clouds which gather around the mountains at the 
sunset hour, they are gorgeous beyond compare. 

With regard to climate, I know of no section of coun- 
try that can be compared with the highlands of Georgia 
and North Carolina. It is but seldom that a foot of snow 
covers the earth even in the severest winters ; and, though 
the days of midsummer are very warm, they are seldom 
sultry, and the nights are invariably sufficiently cool to 
make one or two blankets comfortable. Fevers and other 
diseases peculiar to the sea-side of the Alleghanies are hard- 
ly known among their inhabitants, and heretofore the ma- 
jority of people have died of old age. 1 would not intimate 
that they are afflicted with an epidemic at the present time, 
but I do say that there are many households in this region, 
which have been rendered very desolate by the Mexican 
war. When our kingly President commanded the Ameri- 
can people to leave the plough in the furrow and invade a 
neighboring republic, the mountaineers of Georgia and the 
Carolinas poured down into the valley almost without bid- 
ding their mothers, and wives, and sisters a final adieu ; 
and the bones of at least one half of these brave men i3re 



LETTERS FROM THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. 153 

now mouldering away on the desert sands of the far 
South. 

Generally speaking, the soil of this country is fertile, 
yielding the best of corn, potatoes, and rye, but only an 
average quality of wheat, on account of the late frosts. 
In some of the more extensive valleys, the apple and the 
peach arrive at perfection ; and while the former are man- 
ufactured into cider, out of the latter the mountaineers 
make a very palatable brandy. The principal revenue of 
the people, how^ever, is derived front the business of raising 
cattle, which is practised to a considerable extent. The 
mountain ranges afford an abundance of the sweetest gra- 
zing food, and all that the farmer has to do in the autumn 
is to hunt up his stock, which have now become excessive- 
ly fat, and drive them to the Charleston or Baltimore mar- 
ket. The only drawback to this business consists in the 
fact that the cattle in certain sections of the country are 
subject to what is called the milk sickness. This disease 
is supposed to be caused by a poisonous dew which gathers 
on the grass, and is said not only to have destroyed a great 
many cattle in other years, but frequently caused the 
death of entire families who may have partaken of the un- 
wholesome milk. It is a dreaded disease, and principally 
fatal in the autumn. From the foregoing remarks it will 
be seen that a mountain farmer may be an agriculturist, 
and yet have an abundance of time to follow any other em- 
ployment that he has a passion for ; and the result of this 
fact is, that he is generally a faithful disciple of the immor- 
tal Nimrod. 

All the cabins that I have visited have been ornamented 
by at least one gun, and more than one-half of the inhabit- 
ants have usually been hounds. That the mountaineers are 
8 



154 LETTERS FROM THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. 

poor, is a matter of course, and the majority of their cabins 
are cheerless places indeed to harbor the human frame for 
life ; but the people are distinguished for their hospitality, 
and always place before the stranger the choicest of their 
store. Bacon, game, and milk are their staple articles of 
food, and honey is their principal luxury. In religion, gen- 
erally speaking, they are Methodists and Baptists, and are 
distinguished for their sobriety. They have but few oppor- 
tunities of hearing good preaching, but I have never en- 
tered more than three or four cabins where I did not see a 
copy of the Bible. The limited knowledge they possess has 
come to them directly from Heaven as it were, and, from 
the necessity of the case, their children are growing up in 
the most deplorable ignorance. Whenever one of these poor 
families happened to learn from my conversation that I was 
a resident of New-York, the interest with which they gazed 
upon me and listened to my every word, was both agreea- 
ble and painful. It made me happy to communicate what 
little I happened to know, but pained me to think upon 
their isolated and uncultivated manner of life. Give me 
the wilderness for a day or month, but for life I must be 
amid the haunts of refinement and civilization. As to the 
slave population of the mountain districts, it is so limited 
that I can hardly express an opinion with regard to their 
condition. Not more than one white man in ten (perhaps 
I ought to say twenty) is sufficiently wealthy to support a 
slave, and those who do possess them are in the habit of 
treating them as intelligent beings and in the most kindly 
manner. As I have found it to be the case on the sea- 
board, the slaves residing among the mountains are the 
happiest and most independent portion of the population ; 



LETTERS FROM THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. 155 

and I have had many a one pilot me over the mountains 
who would not have exchanged places even with his mas- 
ter. They have a comfortable house and no debts to pay : 
every thing they need in the way of clothing and wholesome 
food is ever at their command, and they have free access to 
the churches and the Sunday schools of the land. What 
more do the poor of any country possess that can add to 
their temporal happiness ? 

Another, and of course the most limited portion of the 
population occupying this mountain country,- is what might 
be called the aristocracy or gentry. Generally speaking, 
they are descended from the best of families, and moderately 
wealthy. They are fond of good living, and their chief 
business is to make themselves as comfortable as possible. 
They esteem solid enjoyment more than display, and are 
far more intelligent (so far as books and the world are con- 
cerned) than the same class of people at the North. The 
majority of Southern gentlemen, I believe, would be glad 
to see the institution of slavery abolished, if it could be 
brought about without reducing them to beggary. But 
they hate a political Abolitionist as they do the very — 
Father of Lies ; and for this want of affection I do not see 
that they deserve to be blamed. The height of a Southern 
man's ambition is to be a gentleman in every particular — 
in word, thought, and deed ; and to be a perfect gentleman, 
in my opinion, is to be a Christian. And with regard to the 
much-talked-of hospitality of the wealthier classes in the 
South, I can only say that my own experience ought to 
make me very eloquent in their praise. Not only does the 
genuine feeling exist here, but a Southern gentleman gives 
such expression to his feeling by his home-like treatment of 



156 LETTERS FROM THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. 

you, that to be truly hospitable you might imagine had been 
the principal study of his life. 

But the music of the " mellow horn "" is ringing in my 
ear, and in an hour from this time I shall have thrown my- 
self into a stagecoach, and be on my way up the long and 
broad valley of Virginia. 



LETTER XX. 

The Nameless Vallet, Virginia, June, 1848. 

Since my last letter was written, my course of travel 
has led me towards the fountain-head of the Holston river, 
whose broad and highly cultivated valley is bounded on the 
northwest by the Clinch Mountains, and on the southeast 
by the Iron Mountains. The agricultural and mineral ad- 
vantages of this valley are manifold, and the towns and 
farms scattered along the stage-road all present a thriving 
and agreeable appearance. Along the bed of the Holston 
agates and cornelians are found in considerable abundance ; 
and though the scenery of its valley is merely beautiful, I 
know of no district in the world where caves and caverns 
are found in such great numbers. A zigzag tour along this 
valley alone will take the traveller to at least one dozen 
caves, many of which are said to be remarkably interest- 
ing. From my own observation, however, I know nothing 
about them ; and so long as I retain my passion for the re- 
vealed productions of nature, I will leave the hidden ones to 
take care of themselves. 

On reaching the pleasant little village of Abingdon, in 
Washington county, a friend informed me that I must not 
fail to visit the salt-works of Smythe county. I did so, and 
the following is my account of Saltville, which is the proper 
name for the place in question : Its site was originally a 
salt-lick, to which immense herds of elk, buffalo, and deer, 



158 LETTERS FROM THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. 

were in the habit of resorting ; subsequently, the Indians 
applied the privilege to themselves, and then an occasional 
hunter came here for his supplies ; but the regular business 
of transforming the w^ater into salt did not commence until 
the year 1790. Saltville is located at the head of a valley 
near the base of the Clinch Mountains, and about one mile 
from the Holston river. All the population of the place, 
numbering perhaps three hundred inhabitants, are engaged 
in the manufacture of salt. The water here is said to be 
the strongest and purest in the world. When tested by a 
salometer, graded for saturation at twenty-five degrees, it 
ranges from twenty to twenty-two degrees, and twenty 
gallons of water will yield one bushel of salt, which weighs 
fifty pounds, (and not fifty-six as at the North,) and is sold 
at the rate of twenty cents per bushel, or one dollar and 
twenty cents per barrel. The water is brought from a 
depth of two hundred and twenty feet by means of three 
artesian wells, which keep five furnaces or salt-blocks, of 
eighty-four kettles each, in constant employment, and pro- 
duce about two thousand bushels per day. The water is 
raised by means of horse-power, and twenty-five teams are 
constantly employed in supplying the furnaces with wood. 
The salt manufactured here is acknowledged to be superior 
in quality to that made on the Kanawha, in this State, or 
at Syracuse, in New- York, but the Northern establishments 
are by far the most extensive. The section of country 
supplied from this quarter is chiefly composed of Tennessee 
and Alabama ; generally speaking, there is but one ship- 
ment made during the year, which is in the spring, and by 
means of flat-boats built expressly for the purpose. A 
dozen or two of these boats are always ready for business, 
and when the Holston is swollen by a freshet they are 



LETTERS FROM THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. 159 

loaded and manned at the earliest possible moment, and 
away the singing boatmen go down the wild, winding, and 
narrow but picturesque stream, to their desired havens. 
The section of country supplied by the Kanawha is the 
northwest and the extreme south, while Syracuse, Liver- 
pool, and Turk's Island supply the Atlantic seaboard. The 
Saltville reservoir of water seems to be inexhaustible, and 
it is supposed would give active employment to at least a 
dozen new furnaces. As already stated, the yielding wells 
are somewhat over two hundred feet deep ; but within a 
stone's throw of these, other wells have been sunk to the 
depth of four, five, and six hundred feet, without obtaining 
a particle of the valuable liquid. The business of Saltville 
is carried on by private enterprise altogether, and the prin- 
cipal proprietor and director is a gentleman who comes 
from that noble stock which has given to this country such 
men as Patrick Henry and William H. Preston. I am at 
present the guest of this gentleman, and therefore refrain 
from giving his name to the public ; but as his plantation 
is decidedly the most beautiful that I have seen in the whole 
Southern country, I must be permitted to give a particular 
description for the edification of my readers. 

This heretofore nameless nook of the great world I 
have been permitted to designate as The Nameless Valley, 
and if I succeed in merely enumerating its charming fea- 
tures and associations, I feel confident that my letter will 
be read with pleasure. It is the centre of a domain com- 
prising eight thousand acres of land, which covers a multi- 
tude of hills that are all thrown in shadow at the sunset 
hour by the Chnch Mountains. The valley in question is 
one mile by three-quarters of a mile wide, and comprises 
exactly three hundred and thirty-three acres of green 



160 LETTERS FROM THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. 

meadow land, unbroken by a single fence, but ornamented 
by about a dozen isolated trees, composed of at least half 
a dozen varieties, and the valley is watered by a tiny 
stream of the clearest water. It is completely surrounded 
with cone-like hills, which are nearly all highly cultivated 
halfway up their sides, but crowned with a diadem of the 
most luxuriant forest trees. A little back of the hills, 
skirting the western side of the valley, are the picturesquely 
broken Clinch Mountains, whose every outline, and cliff, 
and fissure, and ravine, may be distinctly seen from the 
opposite side of the valley, where the spacious and taste- 
fully porticoed mansion of the proprietor is located. Clus- 
tering immediately around this dwelling, but not so as to 
interrupt the view, are a number of very large willows, 
poplars, and elms, while the inclosed slope upon which it 
stands is covered with luxuriant grass, here and there enli- 
vened by a stack of roses and other flowers. The numer- 
ous outhouses of the plantation are a little back of the main 
building, and consist of neatly painted cabins, occupied 
by the negroes belonging to the estate, and numbering 
about one hundred souls ; then come the stables, where no 
less than seventy-five horses are daily supplied with food ; 
then we have a pasture on the hill side, where thirty or 
forty cows nightly congregate to be milked, and give suck 
to their calves ; and then we have a mammoth spring, 
whose waters issue out of the mountain, making only about 
a dozen leaps, throwing themselves upon the huge wheel 
of an old mill, causing it to sing a kind of circling song 
from earhest dawn to the twilight hour. In looking to the 
westward from the spacious porticoes of the mansion, the 
eye falls upon only two objects which are at all calculated 
to destroy the natural solitude of the place, viz. a road 



LETTERS FROM THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. 161 

which passes directly by the house at the foot of the lawn, 
and one small white cottage situated at the base of a hill on 
the opposite side of the valley. Instead of detracting from 
the scene, however, these objects actually make it more in- 
teresting, when the facts are remembered that in that cot- 
tage did the proprietor of this great estate first see the light, 
and that by its side are deposited the remains of five genera- 
tions of his ancestors ; and as to the road, the people who 
travel it all appear and move along just exactly as a poet 
would desire. 

But to give my readers a more graphic idea of this truly 
delightful valley, I will enumerate the living pictures which 
attracted my attention from the book I was attempting to 
read on a single afternoon. I was in a commanding corner 
of the porch, and had closed the volume just as the sun 
was sinking behind the mountain. The sky was of a soft 
silvery hue, and almost cloudless, and the entire landscape 
was bathed in an exquisitely soft and delightful atmosphere. 
Not a breeze was stirring in the valley, ajid the cool sha- 
dows of the trees were twice as long as the trees themselves. 
The first noise that broke the silence of the scene was a 
slow thumping and creaking sound away down the road, 
and on casting my eyes in the right direction I discovered 
a large wain, or covered wagon, drawn by seven horses, 
and driven by a man who amused himself as he lazily 
moved along, by snapping his whip at the harmless plants 
by the road-side. I know not whence he came or whither 
he was going, but twenty minutes must have flown before 
he passed out of my view. At one time a flood of discord 
came to my ear from one of the huge poplars in the yard, 
and I could see that there was a terrible dispute going on 
between a lot of resident and stranger blackbirds ; and, 
8* 



162 LETTERS FROM THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. 

after they had ceased their noise, I could hear the chirping 
of the swallows, as they swooped after the insects, floating 
in the sunbeams, far away over the green valley. And now 
I heard a laugh and the sound of talking voices, and lo ! a 
party of ten negroes, who were returning from the fields 
where they had been cutting hay or hoeing corn. The 
neighing and stamping of a steed now attracted my atten- 
tion, and I saw a superb blood horse attempting to get 
away from a negro groom, who was leading him along the 
road. The mellow tinkling of a bell and the lowing of 
cattle now came trembling on the air, and presently, a herd 
of cows made their appearance, returning home from the 
far-ofT hills with udders brimming full, and kicking up a 
dust as they lounged along. Now the sun dropped behind* 
the hills, and one solitary night-hawk shot high up into the 
air, as if he had gone to welcome the evening star, wiiich 
presently made its appearance from its blue watchtower; 
and, finally, a dozen women came trooping from the cow- 
yard into the dairy house, with well-filled milk-pails on 
their heads, and looking like a troop of Egyptic water 
damsels. And then for one long hour did the spirits of 
repose and twilight have complete possession of the 
valley, and no sound fell upon my ear but the hum of insect 
wings. 

But I was intending to mention the curiosities of the 
Nameless Valley. Foremost among these 1 would rank a 
small cave, on the south side, in which are deposited a cu- 
rious collection of human bones. Many of them are very 
large, while others, which were evidently full-grown, are 
exceedingly small. Among the female skulls I noticed one 
of a female that seemed to be perfectly beautiful, but small 
enough to have belonged to a child. The most curious 



LETTERS FROM THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. 163 

specimen, however, found in this cave, is the skull of a 
man. It is entirely without a forehead, very narrow across' 
the eyes, full and regularly rounded behind, and from the 
lower part of the ears are two bony projections, nearly 
two inches in length, which must have presented a truly 
terrible appearance when covered with flesh. The animal 
organs of this skull are remarkably full, and it is also 
greatly deficient in all the intellectual faculties. Another 
curiosity in this valley is a bed of plaster which lies in the 
immediate vicinity of a bed of slate, with a granite and 
limestone strata only a short distance off^ the whole con- 
stituting a geological conglomeration that I never heard of 
before. But what is still more remarkable is the fact, that 
within this plaster bed was found the remains of an un- 
known animal, which must have been a mammoth indeed. 
A grinder tooth belonging to this monster I have seen and 
examined. It has a blackish appearance, measures about 
ten inches in length, weighs four pounds and a half, and 
was found only three feet from the surface. This tooth, as 
well as the skull already mentioned, were discovered by the 
proprietor of the valley, and, I am glad to learn, are about 
to be deposited by him in the National Museum at Wash- 
ington. But another attractive feature in the Nameless 
Valley consists of a kind of Indian Herculaneum, where, 
deeply imbedded in sand and clay, are the remains of a 
town, whence have been brought to light a great variety 
of earthen vessels and curious utensils. Upon this spot, 
also, many shells have been found, which are said never to 
have been seen excepting on the shore of the Pacific. But 
all these things should be described by the antiquarian, and 
I only mention them for the purpose of letting the world 
know that there is literally no end to the wonders of our 
beautiful land. 



164 LETTERS FROM THE ALLEGfiANY MOUNTAINS. 

I did think of sketching a few of the many charming 
'views which present themselves from the hills surrounding 
the Nameless Valley, but I am not exactly in the mood just 
now, and I will leave them " in their glory alone." Con- 
nected with a precipice on one of them, however, I have 
this incident to relate. For an hour or more had I been 
watching the evolutions of a superb bald-headed eagle 
above the valley, when, to my surprise, he suddenly became 
excited, and darted down with intense swiftness towards 
the summit of the cliff alluded to, and disappeared among 
the trees. A piercing shriek followed this movement, and 
I anticipated a combat between the eagle and a pair of fish- 
hawks which I knew had a nest upon the cliff. In less 
than five minutes after this assault, the eagle again made 
his appearance, but uttered not a sound, and, having flown 
to the opposite side of the valley, commenced performing 
a circle, in the most graceful manner imaginable. Pre- 
sently the two hawks also made their appearance high 
above their rocky home, and proceeded to imitate the 
movements of the eagle. At first the two parties seemed 
to be indifferent to each other, but on observing them more 
closely it was evident that they were gradually approaching 
each other, and that their several circles were rapidly les- 
sening. On reaching an elevation of perhaps five thousand 
feet, they finally interfered with each other, and, having 
joined issue, a regular battle commenced, and as they as- 
cended, the screams of the hawks gradually became inau- 
dible, and in a short time the three royal birds were en- 
tirely lost to view in the blue zenith. 

Before closing this letter, I wish to inform my readers 
of a natural curiosity lying between the Clinch and Cum- 



LETTERS FROM THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. 165 

berland Mountains, and distant from this place only about 
a day's journey. I allude to what is called the Natural 
Tunnel. It is in Scott county, and consists of a subter- 
ranean channel through a ragged limestone hill, the entire 
bed of which is watered by a running stream about twenty 
feet wide. The cavern is four hundred and fifty feet long, 
from sixty to eighty feet in height, about seventy in width, 
and of a serpentine form. On either side of the hill 
through which this tunnel passes are perpendicular cliffs, 
some of which are three hundred feet high .and exceed- 
ingly picturesque. The gloomy aspect of this tunnel, 
even at mid-day, is very imposing ; for when standing 
near the centre neither of its outlets can be seen, and 
it requires hardly an effort of the fancy for a man to 
deem himself for ever entombed within the bowels of the 
earth. 



LETTER XXI. 

Harper's Ferry, June, 1848. 
Since the date of my last letter, I have been travelling 
through a very beautiful but thickly-settled portion of the 
Alleghany country, w^hose natural curiosities are as familiar 
to the world as a thrice-told tale. For this reason, there- 
fore, I shall be exceedingly brief in describing what I have 
seen in the Valley of Virginia. That portion of the " An- 
cient Dominion" known by the above name is about two 
hundred miles long, ranging in width from thirty to forty 
miles. It is bounded on the north by the Potomac, on the 
east by the Blue Ridge, on the west by a spur of the Alle- 
ghanies called the North Mountains, and on the south by 
the New River, or Kanawha, as it should be called. Its 
principal streams are the Shenandoah, the James River, 
and the Cacapon, which are in every way worthy of their 
parent country. In ascending to the north, I was tempted 
to perform a pilgrimage down the Kanawha, but my map 
told me that I could not see the whole of its valley without 
travelling at least two hundred miles, and I therefore con- 
cluded that its charming scenery, its famous salt-works, and 
the still more celebrated White Sulphur Springs, should re- 
main undescribed by my pen. In fact, to visit all the inte- 
resting objects among the Alleghany Mountains would oc- 
cupy a number of summers, and therefore, in making a single 



LETTERS FROM THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. 167 

tour, I have found it important to discriminate as I passed 
along. But it is time that I^hould turn my attention to the 
prominent attractions of the great Virginia Valley. They 
are as follows, and I shall speak of them in the order in 
which I visited them, viz. : the Peaks of Otter, the Natural 
Bridge, Wyer's Cave, Cyclopean Towers, the Shenandoah, 
and Harper's Ferry. 

The Peaks of Otter are situated upon the line which 
separates the counties of Bedford and Bottetourt, and are 
the two highest mountains on the Blue Ridge range, and 
therefore the highest in Virginia. They derive their name 
from the fact that, at a very early period in the history of 
our country, the otter was found in great abundance in the 
smaller streams at their base. In appearance they resemble 
a pair of regularly formed haystacks, and reach an eleva- 
tion of about five thousand feet above the level of the ocean. 
Owing to the circumstance that the country on one side is 
nearly level, and that the surrounding mountains are com- 
paratively low, their appearance is exceedingly imposing. 
The summits of these watchtowers are destitute of vegeta- 
tion, but crowned with immense rocks, which have been 
scattered about in the most incomprehensible confusion. 
And hereby hangs a story. About one year ago, a number 
of persons ascended the highest peak in question, and having 
discovered an immense rock, which appeared to be in a 
tottleish position, they took into their heads to give it a 
start down the mountain side, and see what would be the 
result. They accomplished their purpose and something 
more, for it so happened that the rock travelled much further 
than they expected, and having fallen into a very large 
spring at the foot of the mountain, caused it to disappear 
from the face of the earth. The owner of the spring felt 



168 LETTERS FROM THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. 

himself injured by this circumstance, and went to law about 
it, and the offending parties, as>I have been informed, were 
compelled to pay a heavy bill of damages. That the sun- 
rise and sunset prospects from the Peaks of Otter are su- 
perb may readily be imagined. Those which present them- 
selves on the north, west, and south, seem to comprise the 
entire Appalachian chain of mountains, but the oceanward 
panorama is unique and particularly impressive. In this 
direction the whole eastern portion of Virginia resembles a 
boundless plain, where even the most extensive plantations 
appear no larger than the squares upon a chessboard ; and 
now that I have employed that figure, it strikes me as par- 
ticularly appropriate ; for where is there a man on the face 
of the earth who is not playing a game for the attainment 
of happiness ? From their position, the Peaks of Otter look 
down upon all the fogs and vapors born of the sea breezes, 
and, by those who have frequently beheld their fantastic 
evolutions, I am told that they surpass even the wildest 
flights of poetry. Few mountains in this country have been 
visited by so many distinguished men as the Peaks of Otter ; 
and it is said that it was while standing on their loftiest pin- 
nacle that John Randolph first had a realizing sense of the 
existence and the power of God. To some minds a moun- 
tain peak may be a thousand-fold more eloquent than the 
voice of man ; and when 1 think of the highly moral condi- 
tion of the people in Central Virginia, I am constrained to 
award a mite of praise even to the Peaks of Otter for their 
happy influences. 

It was a thousand years ago, and a mighty caravan of 
mammoths were travelling across the American continent. 
Midway between two ranges of mountains they came to a 
great ravine, over which they could not find a passage, and 



LETTERS FROM THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. 169 

they were in despair. The Great Spirit took pity upon the 
animals, and having brought a deep sleep upon them, threw 
a mass of solid rock completely across the ravine, and so, 
according to an almost forgotten Indian legend, came into 
existence the Natural Bridge of Virginia. The chasm over 
which this magnificent limestone arch has been formed 
varies from sixty to ninety feet in width, the surrounding 
precipices are nearly two hundred and fifty feet high and 
perpendicular, and the lower line of the narrow arch itself 
is two hundred feet above the stream which passes through 
the gorge. The bridge and its clift-like abutments are all 
crowned with a luxuriant diadem of trees, which lends them 
an indescribable charm, and directly on the north side of 
the former stands an exceedingly picturesque gallery or 
parapet of solid rock, which seems to have been formed by 
Nature for the especial purpose of affording the most impos- 
ing prospect into the dell. From every elevated point of 
view the eye falls into an abyss, which one might easily 
fancy to be the birthplace of all the shadows in the world, 
the gray and green gloom is so deep, so purely beautiful, 
and so refreshing, even at the hour of noon ; but from ev- 
ery point of view at the bottom of the dell, the stupendous 
arch, as some writer has finely said, " seems to offer a pas- 
sage to the skies," and the massive masonry of Nature 
stands boldly out against the blue heavens, thereby produc- 
ing a most unique and poetical contrast. But the location 
of this bridge is not less beautiful than its structure. It is 
completely surrounded with hills, which seem to cluster 
around the rare spectacle, as if to protect it from sacrilege ; 
and from the hills in question the eye is every where de- 
lighted with mountain landscapes of uncommon loveliness. 
Wyer's Cave is in Augusta county, and the entrance 



170 LETTERS FROM THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. 

to it is from the side of a limestone hill, which commands 
a very charming prospect of the highly cultivated Valley of 
the Shenandoah. It was originally discovered by one Ber- 
nard Wyer in the year 1804, whose fortune it was to cap- 
ture a bear within a few paces of its entrance. Its entire 
length is not far from one thousand yards, so that its size 
is not to be wondered at ; but when you come to speak of 
its beauty, the variety, number, and imposing appearance 
of its apartments, the novelty of its concretions, its fantas- 
tic projections, its comparative freedom from dampness, and 
the whiteness of its walls, I suppose it must be considered 
as unsurpassed by any thing of the kind in the country, ex- 
cepting the Cave of Kentucky. But the pleasure of roam- 
ing about this darksome emblem of perdition is greatly en- 
hanced by the huge pine torches w^hich you and your guide 
have to carry over your heads, and then if you can possi- 
bly bribe your friend not to utter a single one of the abom- 
inably classical names with which all the nooks and corners 
of the cave have been christened, your gratification will 
indeed be real, and your impressions strange, unearthly, and 
long-to-be-remembered in your dreams. To enjoy a visit 
to this cave, as it ought to be enjoyed, a man ought to 
have an entire summer day at his disposal ; ought to be 
alone, should have a torch that should need no trimming, 
and under his arm a well-printed copy of Dante. Thus 
prepared, his enjoyment would be truly exquisite. 

The Cyclopean Towers are also in Augusta county, and 
were so called on account of their resemblance to the Cy- 
clopean walls of the ancients. They are formed of lime- 
stone, and as they stand at the outlet of a valley, through 
which it is probable a mighty river once flowed, they were 
evidently formed by the water while forcing its way around 



LETTERS FROM THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. 171 

the point of the neighboring hill. There are five or six 
of them, and they vary from forty to ninety feet from base 
to summit, and are covered with trees. When viewed at 
the twilight hour they appear like the mouldering ruins of 
a once magnificent castle, and the wildness of the sur- 
rounding scenery is not at all calculated to dissipate this 
illusion. 

With regard to the Valley of the Shenandoah, I can 
only say that a more beautiful section of country I have 
never seen. The soil is exceedingly rich and highly culti- 
vated ; its yeomanry are descended from the German popu- 
lation of the older times ; and throughout all its borders, I 
am certain that peace and plenty abound. As to the river 
itself, I can only say that it is worthy of its vague but po- 
etical and melodious Indian name, the interpretation of 
which is said to be Daughter of the Stars. 

And now a single word in regard to Harper's Ferry. 
When I close my eyes and bring the scenery of this portion 
of the Potomac before my mind, I am disposed to agree, in 
every particular, with all those writers who have sung the 
praises of this remarkable gorge ; but when I look upon it 
as it now appears, despoiled by the hand of civilization of 
almost every thing which gives a charm to the wilderness, 
I am troubled with an emotion allied to regret, and I again 
instinctively close my eyes, that I may look into the past, 
and once more hear the whoop of the Indian hunter follow- 
m^ the fleet deer. 



ADDENDA. 



[The following highly interesting and valuable communications, are 
reprinted in this place by permission of the several writers, and for the 
purpose of concluding my little volume with an appropriate climax. The 
first was addressed to the Editors of the National InteUigencer, and pub- 
lished in that journal subsequently to the appearance of my " Letters from 
the Alleghany Mountains." The second was addressed to J. S. Skinner, 
Esq., but also published in the Intelligencer ; and the third, introducing a 
letter from Professor C. U. Shepard, was originally addressed to the 
Editor of the Highland Messenger, (Ashville, N. C.) in which paper it 
made its first appearance : and the fourth communication, by Professor E. 
Mitchell, addressed to the Hon. Mr. Clingman, was published in the New- 
York Albion.] 

C. L. 

To the Editors of the National Intelligencer. 

Ashville, North Carolina, October, 1848. 
Gentlemen : As you have recently been publishing a series of letters 
in relation to that portion of the Alleghany range which is situated in 
North Carolina, you may, perhaps, find matter of interest in the subject of 
this communication. My purpose in making it is not only to present to 
the consideration of those learned or curious in geology facts singular and 
interesting in themselves, but also, by means of your widely disseminated 
paper, to stimulate an inquiry as to whether similar phenomena have been 
observed in any other parts of the Alleghany range. 



174 LETTERS FROM THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. 

A number of persons had stated to me that at different periods, within 
the recollection of persons now living, a portion of a certain mountain in 
Haywood county had been violently agitated and broken to pieces. The 
first of these shocks remembered by any person whom I have seen, occur- 
red just prior to the last war with England, in the year 1811 or 1812. 
Since then some half a dozen or more have been noticed. The latest oc- 
curred something more than three years ago, on a clear summer morning. 
These shocks have usually occurred, or at least been more frequently ob- 
served, in calm weather. They have generally been heard distinctly by 
persons in the town of Waynesville, some twenty miles off. The sound 
is described as resembling the rumbling of distant thunder, but no shaking 
of the earth is felt at that distance. In the immediate vicinity of the 
mountain, and for four or five miles around, this sound is accompanied by 
a slight trembling of the earth, which continues as long as the sound lasts 
— that is, for one or two minutes. After each of these shocks the moun- 
tain was found to be freshly rent and broken in various places. 

Having an opportunity afforded me a few days since, I paid a visit to 
the locality, and devoted a few hours to a hurried examination. It is situ- 
ated in the northeastern section of Haywood county, near the head of 
Fine's creek. The bed of the little creek at the mountain is probably ele- 
vated some twenty-six or seven hundred feet above the level of the ocean. 
The valley of the French Broad, at the Warm Springs, some fifteen miles 
distant, is twelve hundred feet lower. They are separated, however, by a 
mountain ridge of more than four thousand feet elevation above the sea, 
and there are high mountains in all directions around the locality in ques- 
tion. The immediate object of interest is the western termination of a 
mountain ridge nearly half a mile to the east of the house of Mr. Matthew 
Rogers. The top of this ridge, at the place where it has been recently 
convulsed, is some three or four hundred feet above the creek, at its west- 
ern extremity, but it rises rapidly for some distance as it goes off to the 
eastward towards the higher mountain range. The northern side of this 
ridge I had not time to examine, but the marks of violence are observable 
at the top of the ridge, and extend in a direction nearly due south, down 
the side of the mountain four or five hundred yards, to a little branch ; 
thence across it, over a flat or gentle slope, and up the side of the next 
ridge as far as I went, being for three or four hundred yards. The tract 
of ground examined by me was perhaps half a mile in length from north to 
south. The breadth of the surface subjected to violence was nowhere 



ADDENDA. 175 

more than two hundred yards, and generally rather less than one hun- 
dred. Along this space the ground has been rent in various places. The 
fissures or cracks most frequently run in a northern and southern direc- 
tion, and towards the tops of the mountains, but they are often at right an- 
gles to these, and in fact some may be found in all directions. While 
some of them are so narrow as to be barely visible, others are three or four 
feet in width. The annual falling of the leaves and the washing of the 
rains has filled them so that at no place are they more than five or six feet 
in depth. Along this tract all the large trees have been thrown down, and 
are lying in various directions, some of them six feet in diameter. One 
large poplar, which stood directly over one of the fissures, was cleft open, 
and one half of the trunk, to the height of more than twenty feet, is still 
standing. Though the fissure, which passed directly under its centre, is 
not more than an inch in width, it may be observed for nearly a hundred 
yards. All the roots of trees which crossed the lines of fracture are broken. 
The rocks are also cloven by these lines. The top of the ridge, which 
seems originally to have been an entire mass of granite,, is broken in places. 
Not only have those masses of rock, which are chiefly under ground, been 
cleft open, but fragments lying on the surface have been shattered. All 
those persons who have visited it immediately after a convulsion, concur 
in saying that every fallen tree and rock has been moved. The smallest 
fragments have been thrown from their beds as though they had been 
lifted up. In confirmation of this statement I observed that a large block 
of granite, of an oblong form, which, from its size, must have weighed not 
less than two thousand tons, had been broken into three pieces of 
nearly equal size. This mass was lying loosely on the top of the ground, 
in a place nearly level, and there were no signs of its having rolled or slid- 
den. The fragments were separated only a few inches, rendering it almost 
certain that it had been broken by a sudden shock or jar, which did not 
continue long enough to throw the pieces far apart. 

Some parts of the surface of the earth have sunk down irregularly a 
few feet, other portions have been raised. There are a number of little 
elevations or hillocks, some of a few feet only in extent, and others twen- 
ty and thirty yards over. The largest rise at the centre to the height of 
eight or ten feet, and slope gradually down ; some of these have been sur- 
rounded on all sides by a fissure, which is not yet entirely filled up. In 
some instances the trees on their sides, none of them large, are bent con- 
siderably from the perpendicular, showing that they had attained some size 
before the change of level took place on the surface where they grow. 



176 LETTERS FROM THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. 

The sides of the mountain generally are covered by a good vegetable 
mould, not particularly rocky, and sustaining trees of large size. But 
along the belt of convulsion the rocks are much more abundant, and there 
are only young trees growing, the elasticity of which enabled them to 
stand during the shocks. 

With reference to the mineral structure of the locality, it may be re- 
marked that that entire section seems to constitute a hypogene formation. 
It cohsists of granites, gneiss, sometimes porphyritic, hornblende rock, 
micaceous schists, clay slate, and various other metamorphic strata. The 
nearest aqueous rocks that I know of are the conglomerate sandstone and 
sedimentary limestone, in the vicinity of the Warm Springs, fifteen miles 
distant in a direct line. If any volcanic rock has been found in hundreds 
of miles I am not aware of it. The mountain itself bears the most indub- 
itable marks of plutonic origin. It consists mainly of a grayish white 
granite, in which the felspar greatly predominates, but it is sometimes ren- 
dered dark by an excess of mica in minute black scales. This latter min- 
eral I saw also there in small rather irregular crystals. Some portions of 
the rock contained, however, its three ingredients, in nearly equal propor- 
tions ; the quartz, in color, frequently approaching ash gray. In several 
places I observed that the granite was cut vertically by veins of gray trans- 
lucent quartz, of from one to six inches in thickness. There were also 
lying in places on the ground lumps of common opaque white quartz, inter- 
sected by narrow veins, not exceeding half an inch in thickness, of specular 
iron, of the highest degree of brilliancy and hardness that that mineral is cap- 
able of possessing. It may be remarked that there are, in different directions 
within two miles of the locality, two considerable deposits of magnetic 
iron ore. The only rock which I observed there possessing any appear- 
ance of stratification seems to consist of mica, hornblende and a little fel- 
spar, in a state of intimate mixture. Having but a few hours to remain 
there, I do not pretend that there are not many other minerals at the local- 
ity ; but I have no doubt but that the predominating character of the form- 
ation is such as I have endeavored to describe it, and I have been thus 
minute, in order that others may be able to judge more accurately in rela- 
tion to the cause of the disturbances. 

Before visiting the locality I supposed that the phenomena nught be 
produced by the giving way of some part of the base of the mountain, so 
as to produce a sinking or sliding of the parts ; but a moment's examina- 
tion was decisive on this point. It not unfrequently happens that aqueous 



ADDENDA. 177 

rocks rest on beds of clay, gravel, &c., which may be removed from un- 
derneath them by the action of running- water or other causes. Cavities 
are thns produced, and it sometimes hrsypens that considerable bodies of 
secondary limestone and other sedimentary strata sink down with a violent 
shock. This, however, is found to be tri:e only of such strata as are de- 
posited from water. But at the locality under consideration the rocks are 
exclusively of igneous origin, and, I may add, two of the class termed hy- 
pogene or " nether formed.''' For though felspar and hornblende have been 
found in the lower parts of some of the lavas, where the mass had been 
subjected to great pressure and cooled slowly, yet quartz and mica have 
never been found as constituents of any volcanic rock, not even in the ba- 
saltic dikes and injected traps, where there must have been a pressure 
equal to several hundred atmospheres. It is universally conceded by ge- 
ologists that those rocks of which these minerals constitute a principal 
part, have been produced at great depths in the earth, where they were 
subjected to enormous pressure during their slow cooling and crystalliza- 
tion. Prior, therefore, to the denudation which has exposed these masses 
of granite to our view, they must have been overlaid and pressed down 
while in a fluid state by superincumbent strata of great thickness and vast 
weight. It is not probable, therefore, that any cavities could exist, nor, 
even if it were possible that such could be the case, is it at all likely that a 
granite arch which once upheld such an immense weight would in our 
day give way under the simple pressure of the atmosphere ; or, even if we 
were to adopt the improbable supposition that the mass of granite compos- 
ing this mountain had been formed at a great depth below the present sur- 
face of the earth, and forced up bodily by plutonic action, there is as little 
reason to believe that any cavities could exist. In fact, they are never 
found under granites. On looking at the surface of the ground at this 
place there is no appearance to indicate any general sinking of the mass. 
At the top of the ridge, where the fractures are observable across it, there 
is no variation in the slope of the surface or depression of the broken parts. 
Immediately below it, where the mountain has great steepness, equal at 
least to an inclination of forty-five degrees, where the line of fracture is 
parallel to the direction of the ridge, the surface is sunk suddenly ten or 
fifteen feet. This state of things, however, would inevitably be produced 
at such an inc!inati<^n by the force of gravity alone, causing the parts sep- 
arated by the shock to sink somewhat as they descend the mountain side. 
Lower down, where the steepness is not so great, the elevations much ex- 
9 



178 LETTERS FROM THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. 

ceed the depressions. The same is true of the appearances on the south 
side of the branch, where the surface is almost level for several hundred 
yards ; and 1 think that any one surveying the whole of the disturbed 
ground will be brought to the conclusion that there has been a general up- 
heaval rather than a depression, and that the irregularities now observable 
are due to a force acting from below, which has, during the shocks, une- 
qually raised different parts of the surface. One of the earlier geologists, 
while this science was in its infancy, would probably have ascribed these 
phenomena to the presence underneath the surface of a bed of pyrites, bi- 
tuminous shale, or some other substances capable of spontaneous combus- 
tion, which had taken fire from being penetrated by a stream of water or 
some other accidental cause. If such a combustion were to take place at 
a considerable depth below the surface, and should to a great extent heat 
the strata above, they would thereby be expanded and thickened so as to 
be forced upward. Such an expansion, though it would be less in granite 
than in some other strata, as shown by your fellow-townsman. Col. Totten, 
would nevertheless, if the heated mass were thick and the elevation of 
temperature considerable, be sufficient to raise the surface as much as it 
appears to have been elevated ; such expansion, however, being necessarily 
from its nature very gradual, would not account for the various violent 
shocks nor for the irregular action at the surface. On the other hand, if 
the burning mass were near the surface, so as to cause explosion by 
means of gases generated from time to time, it is scarcely conceivable that 
such gases, while escaping through fissures of the rock above, should fail 
to be observed, inasmuch as a great volume would be necess^ary to supply 
the requisite amount of force, nor is it at all probable that such a state of 
things would not be accompanied by a sensible change of temperature at 
the surface. The difficulty in the way of such a supposition is greatly in- 
creased when we consider the form of the long narrow belt acted on, and 
from the recurrence of the sudden violent shocks after long intervals of 
quiet. Such a hypothesis in fact I do not regard as entitled to more re- 
spect than another one which was suggested to me at the place. As it 
has no other merit than that of originoUty, I should not have thought it 
worth repeating but for the statement of fact made in support of it. While 
I was observing the locality, my attention was directed to an elderly man 
who was gliding with a stealthy step through the forest, carrying on his 
left shoulder a rifle, and in his right hand a small hoe, such as the diggers 
of ginseng use. His glances, alternating between the distant ridges and 



ADDENDA. 179 

the plants about his feet, showed that while looking for deer he was not 
unmindful of the wants of the inhabitants of the Celestial Empire. On 
my questioning him in relation to the appearances, he said that he had ob- 
served them often after the different shocks ; that the appearances were 
changed each time at the surface ; that 1 ought to see it just after a shock, 
before the rain and leaves had filled the cracks, adding that it did " not 
show at all now." He expressed a decided opinion that the convulsions 
were produced by silver under the surface. On my remarking that though 
I knew that that metal, in the hands of men, was an effective agent in 
cleaving rocks and excavating the earth, yet I had not supposed it could 
exert such an influence when deeply buried under ground, he stated in 
support of his opinion, that one of his neighbors had, on the north side of 
the mountain, found a spring hot enough to boil an egg. He also added 
that some three years since he had seen on the mountain, two miles to the 
north of this one, but in the direction seemingly of the line of force, a 
blazing fire for several hours, rising up sometimes as high as the tops 
of the trees, and going out suddenly for a moment at a time at frequent 
intervals. He declared that at the distance of a mile from where he 
was, the brightness was sufficient to enable him to see small objects. 
Several other persons in the vicinity I found subsequently professed to 
have seen the same light from different points of view, and described it 
in a similar manner. As no one of them seems to have thought enough 
of the matter to induce him to attempt to approach the place, though 
some persons represented that they had subsequently found a great quan- 
tity of " cinder" at the point, the statement of fact is not perhaps entitled 
to more weight than the hypothesis it was intended to support. 

It is probable, however, that some difRculty will attend any explanation 
that can be offered in relation to the phenomena at this place. We know 
that the elevation of the surface of the earth is at many places undergoing 
a change, so gradual as not to be observed at any one time. Some of the 
northwestern parts of Europe, for example, are experiencing a slow up- 
Jimial equal to five or six feet in a century, while on the coast of Green- 
land the subsidence, or depression, is such that even the ignorant inhabit- 
ants have learned that it is not prudent for them to build their huts near 
the edge of the water. Similar changes are observed in various other 
places, but they obviously bear no analogy to the facts under considera- 
tion. Again, it is well known that earthquakes from time to time agitate 
violently portions of the earth's surface, of greater or less extent ; that 



180 LETTERS FROM THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. 

while one single shock hus permanently raised two or three feet the coast 
of Chili for several hundred miles, others have elevated or depressed com- 
paratively small spaces. It usually happens, however, that when the 
shock is so forcible at one point as to break the solid strata of the globe, 
the surrounding parts are violently agitated for a considerable distance. 
In the present instance, however, the shock for half a mile at least in 
length, and for the breadth of one hundred yards, is such as to cleave a 
mass of granite of seemingly indefinite extent, and so quick and sudden 
as to displace the smallest fragments on the surface ; and yet at the house 
of Mr. Rogers, less that half a mile distant, a slight trembling only is felt, 
not sufficient to excite alarm, while at the distance of a few miles, though 
the sound is heard, no agitation of the ground is felt. Should we adopt 
the view of those who maintain that all the central parts of the earth are 
in a state of fusion, and that violent movements of parts of the melted 
mass give rise to the shocks which are felt at the surface, the explanation 
of this and similar phenomena is still not free from difficulty. Upon the 
supposition that the solid crust of the globe has no greater thickness than 
that assumed by Humboldt, some twenty-odd miles, it would scarcely 
seem that such a crust, composed of rocky strata, would have the requisite 
degree of elasticity to propagate a violent shock to so small a surface, 
without a greater agitation of the surrounding parts than is sometimes ob- 
served. Volcanic eruptions, however, take place through every variety of 
strata ; but these volcanoes are rarely if ever isolated ; on the contrary, 
not only the volcanoes now active, but such as have been in a state of rest 
from the earliest historic era, are distributed along certain great lines of 
force, or belts, the limits of which seem to have been pretty well defined 
by geologists. But I am not aware of there being any evidence afforded 
of volcanic action, either in recent or remote geological ages, within hun- 
dreds of miles of this locality. Even if such exist beneath the sea, it 
must be at least two hundred miles distant. If then we attribute these 
convulsions to the same causes which have elsewhere generated earth- 
quakes and volcanoes, is it probable that this is the only point in the Alle- 
ghany range thus acted on ? The fact that nothing else of the kind has been, 
as far as I know, published to the world, is by no means conclusive, since 
the disturbances here have not only been unnoticed by writers, but are even 
unknown to nine-tenths of those persons living within fifty miles of the 
spot. Is it then improbable that different points of the great mountain 
range are sensibly acted on from year to year ? It is true that this may 



ADDENDA. 181 

be the only locality affected. It might be supposed that there is at this 
place a mass of rock, separated wholly or partially from the adjoining 
strata, reaching to a great depth, and resting on a fluid basin, the agitation 
of which occasionally would give a shock to the mass. Though such be 
not at all probable, yet it is conceivable that such a mass might possess 
the requisite shape ; and if at the top, instead of being a single piece, it 
should have a number of irregular fragments resting on it below the sur- 
face, then it might be capable of producing inequalities observable after 
each successive convulsion. From the form, however, of ihe belt acted 
on, as well as from other considerations, such a hypothesis is only possi- 
ble, not probable. It would perhaps more readily be conceded that there 
was in the solid strata below an oblong opening, or wide fissure, connected 
with the fluid basin below, and filled either with melted lava, or more proba- 
bly with elastic gas, condensed under vast pressure, so that the occasional 
agitations below would be propagated to the surface at this spot. Or if 
we suppose that steam, at a high heat, or some of the other elastic gaseous 
substances, should escape through fissures from the depths below, but 
have their course obstructed near the surface, so as to accumulate from 
time to time, until their force was sufficient to overpower the resistance, 
then a succession of periodic explosions might occur. Such a state of 
things would be analogous to the manner in which Mr. Lyell accounts for 
the Geysers, or Intermittent Hot Springs, in Iceland, except that the inter- 
vals between the explosions in this instance are much greater than in the 
other. It is easy to conceive that the shocks of some former earth- 
quakes may have produced the requisite condition in the strata at that place. 
Or, should we reject all such suppositions, it might be M'orth while to 
inquire whether this and similar phenomena may not be due to electricity ? 
The opinion seems to have become general with men of science, that there 
are great currents of electricity circulating in the shell of the globe, 
mainly if not entirely in directions parallel to the magnetic equator. The 
observations and experiments of Mr. Fox have, in the opinion of a geolo- 
gist so eminent as Mr. Lyell, established the fact that there are electro- 
magnetic currents along metalliferous veins. Taking these things to be 
true, it may well be that the electricity in its passage should be collected 
and concentrated along certain great veins. During any commotion in the 
great ocean of electricity, the currents along such lines, or rather where 
they are interrupted, might give rise to sensible shocks. The exceedingly 
quick vibratory motion, often observed on such occasions, seems analogous 



182 LETTERS FROM THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. 

to some of the observed effects of electricity. In the present instance the 
line of force appears to coincide with the direction of the magnetic needle. 
It is also represented that the sound accompanying the convulsions is 
heard more distinctly at Waynesville, twenty miles south, than it is within 
two or three miles to the east or west of the locality, seeming to imply 
that the force may be exerted in a long line, though it is more intense at 
a particular point. In adverting, however, to the manner in which the 
phenomena observed at this place might possibly be accounted for, it is 
not my expectation to be able to arrive at their cause. • One whose atten- 
tion is mainly directed to political affairs, and who at most gets but an oc- 
casional glimpse of a book of science, ought neither to assume, nor to be 
expected to accomplish this. I have adopted the above mode of making 
suggestions as to the causes, solely to enable me to explain the facts ob- 
served in a more intelligible manner than I could do by a mere detail of the 
appearances and events as narrated. Perhaps those whose minds are 
chiefly occupied with the consideration of such subjects will find an easy 
solution of these phenomena. Should this letter be instrumental in eli- 
citing information in relation to similar disturbances elsewhere in the Alle- 
ghany range, then its publication may answer some valuable purpose. 
Very respectfully, yours, 

T. L. CLINGMAN. 
Messrs. Gales &l Seaton. 

P. S. Since writing this letter, I have been apprized of a similar con- 
vulsion which occurred six or seven years ago, at a place some forty miles 
distant from this in a southwesterly direction. My informant says that at 
his house the ground was agitated for some minutes during a rumbling 
sound, and that a few miles off, the earth was rent and broken for the dis- 
tance of two miles in length and nearly a half mile in breadth. Though 
I have not seen the locality, I have no doubt of the truth of the statement, 
nor of the general resemblance of the phenomena to those I have de- 
scribed above. 

T. L. C. 

To J. S. Skinner, Esq. 

House of Representatves, Feb. 3, 1844. 
Dear Sir : Your favor of the 30th ultimo was received a day or two 
since, and I now avail myself of the very first opportunity to answer it. I 



ADDENDA. 183 

do so most cheerfully, because, in the first place, I am happy to have it in 
my power to gratify in any manner one who has done so much as yourself 
to diffuse correct information on subjects most important to the agricul- 
ture of the country ; and, secondly, because I feel a deep interest in the 
subject to which your inqr.irios are directed. 

You state that you have directed some attention to the sheep hus- 
bandry of the United States, in the course of which it has occurred to you 
that the people of the mountain regions of North Carolina, and some of 
the other Southern States, have not availed themselves sufficiently of their 
natural advantages for the production of sheep. Being myself well ac- 
quainted with the western section of North Carolina, I may perhaps be 
able to give you most of the information you desire. As- you have direct- 
ed several of your inquiries to the county of Yancey, (I presume from the 
fact, well known to you, that it contains the highest mountains in any of 
the United States.) I will, in the first place, turn my attention to that 
county. First, as to its elevation. Dr. Mitchell, of our University, as- 
certained that the bed of Tow river, the largest stream in the county, and 
at a ford near its centre, was about twenty-two hundred feet above the 
level of the ocean. Burnsville, the seat of the court-house, he found to 
be between 2,800 and 2,900 feet above it. The general level of the 
county is, of course, much above this elevation. In fact, a number of the 
mountain summits rise above tlie height of six thousand feet. Tlie cli- 
mate is delightfully cool during the summer: there being very few places 
in the county where the thermometer rises above 80° on the hottest day- 
An intelligent gentleman v/ho passed a summer in the northern part of 
the county (rather the more elevated portion of it) informed me that the 
thermometer did not rise on the iiottest days above 76°. 

You ask, in the next place, if the surfiice of the ground is so much cov- 
ered with rocks as to render it unfit for pasture ? The reverse is the fact ; 
no portion of the county that I have passed over is too rocky for cultiva- 
tion, and in many sec lions of the county one may travel miles without 
seeing a single stone. It is only about the tops of the highest mountains 
that rocky precipices are to be found. A large portion of the surface of 
the county is a sort of elevated table-land, undulating, but seldom too broken 
for cultivation. Even v.s one ascends the higher mountains, he will find oc- 
casionally on their sides flats of level land containing several himdred acres 
in a body. The top of the Roan (the highest mountain in the county ex- 
cept the Black) is covered by a prairie for ten miles, which affords a rich 



184 LETTERS FROM THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. 

pasture during the greater part of the year. The ascent to it is so gradual, 
that persons r.d; to the top on horseback from ahiiost any direction. The 
same may be said of many of the other mountains. The soil of the county 
generally is uncitmrnonly fertile, producing with tolerable cultivation abun- 
dant crops. What seems extraordinary to a stranger is the fact that the soil 
becomes richer as he ascends the mountains. The sides of the Roan, the 
Black, tlie liald, and others, at an elevation of even five or six thousand 
feet above the sea, are covered with a deep rich vegetable mould, so soft, 
that a horse in dry weather often sinks to the fetlock. The fact that the 
soil is frequently more fertile as one ascends, is, I presume, attributable to 
the circumstance that the higher portions are more commonly covered wilh 
clouds, and the vegetable matter being thus kept in a cool moist state 
while decaying, is incorporated to a greater degree with the surface of the 
enrth. just as it is usually found that the north side of a hill is richer than 
the portion most exposed to the action of the sun's rays. The sides of the 
mountains, the timber being generally large, with little undergrowth and 
brushwood, are peculiarly fitfed for pasture grounds, and the vegetation is 
in many places as luxuriant as it is in the rich savanna of the low 
country. 

The soil of every part of the county is not only favorable to the pro- 
ducti. n ot gr; in, but is peculiarly fitted for grasses. Timothy is supposed 
to make the largest yield, two tons of hay being easily produced on an 
acre, but herds-grass, or red-top, and clover, succeed equally well ; blue- 
gra?-s has not been much tried, but is said to do remarkably w^ell. A friend 
showed me several spears, which he informed me were produced in the 
northern part of the county, and which by measurement were found to ex- 
ceed seventy inches in length ; oats, rye, potatoes, turnips, &c., are pro- 
duced in the greatest abundance. 

With respect to the prices of land, T can assure you that large bodies 
of uncleared rich land, most of which might be cultivated, have been sold 
at prices varying from twenty-five cents to fifty cents per acre. Any 
quantity of land favorable for sheep-walks might be procured in any sec- 
tion of the county, at prices varying from one to ten dollars per acre. 

The few sheep that exist in the county thrive remarkably well, and are 
sometimes permitted to run at large during the winter without being fed, 
and without suffering. As the number kept by any individuil is not large 
enough to justify the employment of a shepherd to take care of them, they 
are notunfrequently destroyed by vicious dogs, and more rarely by wolves, 
which ha\ e not yet been entirely exterminated. 



ADDENDA. J 85 

I have been somewhat prolix in my observations on this county, be- 
cause some of your inquiries were directed particularly to it, and because 
most of what I have said of Yancey is true of the other counties west of 
the Blue Ridge. Haywood has about the same elevation and climate of 
Yancey. The mountains are rather more steep, and the valleys somewhat 
broader ; the soil generally not quite so deep, but very productive, espe- 
cially in grasses. In some sections of the county, however, the soil is 
equal to the best 1 have seen. 

Buncombe and Henderson are rather less elevated — Ashville and Hen- 
dersonville, the county towns, being each about 2,200 feet above the sea. 
The climate is much the same, but a very little wa-mer. The more broken 
portions of these counties resemble much the mountainous parts of Yan- 
cey and Haywood, but they contain much more level land. Indeed the 
greater portion of Henderson is quite level. It contains much swamp 
land, which, when cleared, with very little if any drainage, produces veiy 
fine crops of herds-grass. Portions of Macon and Cherokee counties are 
quite as favorable, both as to climate and soil, as those above described. I 
would advert particularly to the valleys of the Nantahalah, Fairfield, and 
Hamburg," in Macon, and of Cheoh. in Cherokee. In either of these 
places, for a comparatively trifling price, some ten or fifteen miles square 
could be procured, all of which would be rich, and the major part sufficient- 
ly level for cultivation, and especially fitted, as their natural meadows in- 
dicate, for the production of grass. 

In conclusion, I may say that, as far as my limited knowlege of such 
matters authorizes me to speak, I am satisfied that there is no region that 
is more favorable to the production of sheep than much of the country I 
have described. It is every where healthy and well watered. I may add, 
too, that there is water power enough in the different counties composing 
my Congressional district, to move more machinery than human labor can 
ever place there — enough, certainly, to move all now existing in the 
Union. It is also a rich mineral region. The gold mines are worked now 
to a considerable extent. The best ores of iron are found in great abund- 
ance in many places ; copper, lead,* and other valuable minerals exist. 

* Since writing this letter I have discovered there the diamond, platina, 
blue corundum in large masses, of brilliant colors, and the most splendent 
lustre, sapphire, ruby, emerald, euclase, amethyst ; also in various localities, 
zircon, pyropian garnet, chrome ore ; and manganese, and barytes in large 
veins ; likewise plumbago of the finest quality. 
9* 



186 LETTERS FROM THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. 

That must one day become the great manufacturing region of the South. 
I doubt if capital could be used more advantageously in any part of the 
Union than in that section. 

For a number of years past the value of the live stock (as ascertained 
from books of the Turnpike Company) that is driven through Buncombe 
county is from two to three millions of dollars. Most of this stock comes 
from Kentucky and Ohio, and when it has reached Ashville it has travelled 
half its journey to the more distant parts of the Southern market, viz. 
Charleston and Savannah. The citizens of my district, therefore, can get 
their live stock into the planting States south of us at one half the expense 
which those of Kentucky and Ohio are obliged to incur. Not only sheep, 
but hogs, horses, mules, and horned cattle can be produced in many por- 
tions of my district as cheaply as in those two States. 

Slavery is, as you say, a great bugbear, perhaps, at a distance; but I 
doubt if any person from the North, who should reside a single year in 
that country, whatever might be his opinions in relation to the institution 
itself, would find the slightest injury or inconvenience result to him indi- 
vidually. It is true, however, that the number of slaves in those counties 
is very small in proportion to the whole population. 

I have thus, sir, hastily endeavored to comply with your request, be- 
cause you state that you would hke to have the information at once. 
Should you find my sketch of the region a very unsatisfactory and imper- 
fect one, I hope you will do me the favor to remember that the desk of a 
member during a debate is not the most favorable position for writing an 
essay. 

With very great respect, yours, 

T. L C LINGMAN. 
J. S. Skinner, Esq. 



To the Editor of the Highland Messenger. 

You published a few weeks since an extract from an article in Silli- 
man's Journal, contributed by Prof. Shepard, in which he described a dia- 
mond sent him from this region a few months since. As that extract 
excited some interest in the minds of a number of my friends who 
are engaged in the mining business, I inclose you a letter from Prof. 
Shepard, the publication of which I am sure would be acceptable to many 
of your readers. I may remark in explanation, that within the last few 



ADDENDA. 187 

years I have sent Prof. Shopard some hundreds of specimens of minerals 
collected in this and some of the other western counties of the State. In 
some instances a doubt as to the character of a particular mineral induced 
me to take this course, but more frequently it was done to gratify those of 
my acquaintances who wished to have their specimens examined by one 
in whose decision there would be absolute acquiescence. I knew too, that 
I should by these means be able favorably to make known to the public 
the existence in Western North Carolina, of such minerals as might be 
valuable in a commercial point of view, or interesting to the scientific 
world. The letter which I send you, was received in reply to an inquiry 
directed to Prof. Shepard, as to what was his opinion generally in relation 
to the minerals of this region, and what he thought of the propriety of a 
more careful survey of it than has hitherto been made. The answer, 
though merely in reply to my inquiries, is of such a character that I feel 
quite sure that its publication will be alike creditable to the writer and ben- 
eficial to the public. Even should it fail to produce any such impression 
on the minds of our legislators as might induce them to direct a complete 
geological survey of the State, its publicity may in other respects prove 
beneficial. 

I have been pleased to observe that the letter of Prof. Mitchell, in re- 
lation to some of the minerals of this region, which appeared in your paper 
a year or two since, aroused the attention of a number of persons to that 
subject, and has been the means of bringing under my observation several 
interesting minerals. By going (whenever leisure has been afforded me,) 
to examine such localities as from their singular appearance or any pecu- 
liarity of external character, had aroused the attention of persons in the 
neighborhood, — I have induced many to manifest an interest in such sub- 
jects, so that there is in this region a considerable increase in the number 
of individuals who will lay up and preserve for examination singular look- 
ing minerals. Others are deterred from so doing, lest they should be 
laughed at by their neighbors as unsuccessful hunters of mines. D(iubtless 
they deserve ridicule, who, so ignorant of mineralogy as not to be able to 
distinguish the most valuable metallic ores from the most common and 
worthless rocks, nevertheless spend their whole time in travelling about 
the country under the guidance of mineral rods or dreams, in search of 
mines. But, almost every one may without serious loss of time and with 
trifling inconvenience to himself, preserve for future examination speci- 
mens of the different mineral substances he meets with in his rambles. He 



188 LETTERS FROM THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. 

ought to remember that by so doing he may have it in his power to add to 
the knowledge, wealth and happiness of his countrymen. Partially sepa- 
rated as this region of country is by its present physical condition from the 
commercial world, it is of the first consequence to its inhabitants that all 
its resources should be developed. Opening valuable mines, besides di- 
verting labor now unprofitably, because excessively, applied to agriculture, 
would attract capital from abroad and furnish a good home market to the 
farmer. 

Should the proposed Railroad from Columbia to Greenville, S. C, be 
completed, I am of opinion that the manganese and chrome ores in this 
and some of the adjoining counties would be profitably exported. Though 
the veins of sulphate of baryta in the northern part of this county, contain 
pure white varieties suitable to form an adulterant in the manufacture of 
the white lead of commerce, yet. for want of a navigable stream, it is not 
probable that they will ever be turned to account in that way. They 
have, however, at some points, a metallic appearance at the surface, they 
lie at right angles to the general direction of the veins of the country, go 
down vertically, and being associated abundantly with several varieties of 
iron pyrites, oxides of iron, fluor spar and quartz, and containing traces of 
copper and lead, will doubtless at no very distant day, be explored to a 
greater or less extent. There is not a single county west of the Blue 
Ridge, that does not contain in abundance rich iron ores In some in- 
stances these deposites are adjacent to excellent water power and lime- 
stone, and are surrounded by heavily timbered cheap lands. The sparry 
carbonate of iron, or steel ore, of which a specimen some years since, fell 
under the observation (>f Prof. Mitchell, though he was not able to ascer- 
tain the locality from which it came, is abundant at a place rather inacces- 
sible in the present condition of the country. It is not probable that in 
our day the beautiful statuary marble of Cherokee, both white and flesh- 
colored, will be turned to much account for want of the means of getting 
it into those markets where it is needed. Besides the minerals referred 
to in Prof. Shepard's letter, some of the ores of copper exist in the west- 
ern part of this State. I have the carbonate, (green malachite,) the 
black oxide, arid some of the sulphurets. Whether, however, these, as 
well as the ores of lead and zinc, (both the carbonate and sulphuret exist 
here,) are in sufficient abundance to be valuable, cannot be ascertained 
without further examination than has yet been made. 

Many persons are deterred from making any search, and are discour- 



ADDENDA. 189 

aged becanse valuable ores are not easily discovered on the surface of this 
country. This is not usually tt:e case any where. Gold, it is true, be- 
cause it always exists in the metallic state, and because it resists the ac- 
tion of the elements better than any other substance, remains unchanged, 
while the gangue, or mineral containing it crumbles to pieces and disap- 
pears, and hence it is easily found about the surface by the most careless 
observer. Such, however, is not generally the case with metallic ores. 
On the contrary, many of the best ores would, if exposed to the action of 
the elements, in progress of time be decomposed, or so changed from the 
appearances which they usually present when seen in cabinets, that 
none but a practised eye would detect them at the surface. In the 
counties west of the Blue Ridge, there has been as yet no exploration to 
any depth beneath the surfece of the ground, with perhaps the single ex- 
ception of the old excavations in the county of Cherokee. According to 
the most commonly received Indian tradition, they were excavated more 
than a century ago, by a company of Spaniards from Florida. They are 
said to have worked there for two or three summers, to have obtained a 
white metal, and prospered greatly in their mining operations, until the 
Cherokees," finding that if it became generally known that there were 
valuable mines in their country, the cupidity of the white men would ex- 
pel them from it, determined in solemn council to destroy the whole party, 
and that in obedience to that decree no one of the adventurous strangers 
was allowed to return to the country whence they came. Though this 
story accords very well with the Indian laws which condemned to death 
those who disclosed the existence of mines to white men, yet I do not re- 
gard it as entitled to much credit. At the only one of these localities 
which I have examined, besides some other favorable indications, there is 
on the surface of the ground in great abundance that red oxide of iron, 
w^hich from its being found in Germany above the most abundant deposites 
of the ores of lead and silver, has been called by the Germans the Iron 
Hat, Also something resembling that iron ore rich in silver, which the 
Spaniards called pacos, is observable there. It seems more probable, 
therefore, that some of those companies of enterprising Spaniards, that a 
century or two since were traversing the continent in search of gold and 
silver mines, struck by these appearances, sunk the shafts in question and 
soon abandoned them as unproductive. But which of these is the more 
probable conjecture, cannot perhaps be determined, until some one shall 



190 LETTERS FROM THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. 

be found adventurous enough to re-open those old shafts. I am, however, 
keening your readers too long from the interesting letter of Prof Shepard. 

T. L. CLINGMAN. 



New Haven, Conn., Sept. 15, 1746, 
Hon. Mr. Clingman, — Dear Sir : — To your inquiry of what I think 
of the mineral resources of Western North Carolina, it gives me pleasure to 
say that no part of the United States has impressed me more favorably 
than tlie region referred to. It is proper, however, to state, that my ac- 
quaintance with it is not the result of personal observation, but has been 
formed from a correspondence of several years standing with yourself and 
Dr. Hardy, and from the inspection of numerous illustrative specimens 
supplied to me at different times by my colleague, Dr. S. A. Dickson, of 
Charleston, S. C, and by the students of a Medical College of South Ca- 
rolina, who have long been in the habit of bringing with them to the college 
samples of the minerals of their respective neighborhoods. I may add to 
these sources of information, the mention of not unfrequent applications 
made to me by persons from North Carolina, who have had their attention 
called to mines and minerals, with a view to their profitable exploration. 
Nor shall I ever forget the pleasure I experienced a year or two since, on 
being v/aited upon in my laboratory by a farmer from Lincolnton, who 
had under his arm a small trunk of ore in lumps, which he observed that 
he had selected on account of their size, from the gold washings of his 
farm during the space of a single year. The trunk contained not far from 
twelve hundred dollars in value, and one of the specimens weighed two 
hundred and seventy-five dollars. 

I have recognized in the geological formation of the southw^estern 
counties of North Carolina, the same character w^hich distinguishes the 
gold and diamond region of the Minas Geraes of Brazil, and tlie gold and 
platina district (where diamonds also exist) of the Urals, in Siberia. It is 
this circumstance, beyond even the actual discoveries made with us, that 
satisfies my mind of the richness of the country in the precious metals and 
the diamond. The beautiful crystal of this gem which you sent me last 
spring, from a gold washing in Rutherford, however, establishes the 
perfect identity of our region with the far-famed auriferous and diamond 
countries of the South and the East. 



ADDENDA. 191 

Neither can there remain any douht concerning the existence of valu- 
able deposites of manganese, lead, crome and iron, in your immediate vici- 
nity, to which I think we are authorized to add zinc, barytes and marble. 
I have also seen indications of several of the precious stones, besides the 
diamond, making it on the whole, a country of the highest miiieralogical 
promise. 

Enough has already been developed, as it appears to me, in the mine- 
rals of the region under consideration, to arouse the attention of prudent 
legislators to this fertile source of prosperity in a State. If a competent 
surveyor of the work were obtained, under whose direction a zealous and 
well-instructed corps of young men, (now easily to be obtained from those 
States in which such enterprises are just drawing to a close,) could take 
the field, I have no doubt that numerous important discoveries would im- 
mediately be made, and that the entire outlay required for carrying for- 
ward the work, would in a very short time be many times over returned to 
the people from mineral wealth, which now lies unobserved in their very 
midst. But the highest advantages of such a survey would no doubt 
prove with you as it has done elsewhere, to be the spirit of inquiry which it 
u'ould imparl to the population generally, producing among their own ranks 
an efficient band of native mineralogists and geologists, whose services, in 
their own behalf, in that of their neighbors and the State at large, would, 
in a few years, greatly outweigh all that had been achieved by the original 
explorers. It is thus in the States of New-England, New-York, Ohio, Penn- 
sylvania. New Jersey and Maryland, that there are scattered every where 
through those communities, numbers of citizens, who having first had their 
attention called to the subject by the scientific men appointed by the Le- 
gislature, have now become fully competent to settle most of the questions 
which arise relating to the values of the unknown mineral substances, 
which from time to time are submitted by their less informed neighbors for 
determination. A very observable impulse has in this way been given to 
the development of underground wealth ; and many valuable mines are in 
the course of active exploration, which but for these surveys and the at- 
tendant consequences of them, would now remain not only unproductive 
but unknown. Nor is the mere mineral yield of these mines to be consi- 
dered in determining the advantages that accrue to a community from such 
enterprises. The indirect results to the neighborhood in which the mines 
are situated, are often very great ; such for example as those flowing from 
the increased demand for farming produce, from the free circulation of 



192 LETTERS FROM THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. 

capital, the improvement of roads, .ind the general stimulus which is al- 
ways imparted by successful enterprise to the industry of a country. I 
may be permitted to add in conclusion also, that an important service is 
always rendered true science, in restraining the uninformed from unprofita- 
ble adventures. 

I have a wish to see the public survey of North Carolina undertaken, 
not only on account of its economical bearings, but from the conviction 
with which I am impressed, that it will equally promote the progress of 
science, and elevate the character of our country at large. 

I have the honor to remain very truly and obediently yours. 

CHARLES UPHAM SHEPARD. 



To Hon. T. L. Clingman, hut originally puhlished in the 
New-York Albion. 

My Dear Sir, — I promised my friends in the Western counties that 
they should hear from me through the Highland Messenger, and to the 
editor of that paper that he should receive one or two communications. 
As the person who undertakes to inform the public on subjects not strictly 
in the line of his profession is likely to fall into some errors, and to say 
some things which will not be thought very wise, I have wished that what 
I have to offer, might, before going to press, pass under the eye of one, 
who, like yourself, has long taken a deep interest in every thing con- 
nected with the mountain region, is well acquainted with the larger part 
of it, and in whose friendly feeling I could fully rely. The statements 
and remarks that are to follow, will fall naturally under the four heads of 
Elevation of the Country and Height <f the Mountains, Soil and Agricul- 
ture, Minerals and Scenery. 

The elevation of the highest mountain peaks was ascertained by me 
within certain limits of accuracy about eight years ago. So little was 
known about them before that time, that the Grandfather was commonly 
regarded as the highest of all. With the view of coming somewhere near 
the truth, one barometer was stationed at Morganton, and another carried 
to the tops of the mountains. Their elevation above that village was thus 
ascertained; but in order to get their height above the level of the sea, that 
of Morganton must be known, and for this there were no data in which 
implicit confidence could be placed. I finally fixed upon 968 feet as a 
moderate estimate, and in my desire to avoid an extravagant and incredi- 



ADDENDA. 193 

ble result, it now appoars that the elevation assigned to Morganton, and 
therefore to all the heights measured, was somewhat too small. 

In the first report of the President and Directors of the Louisville, Cin- 
cinnati, and Charleston Railroad, it is stated as one of the results of the 
surveys and measurements made with reference to that work, that " the 
elevation of the summit of our mountain passing above a line drawn along 
what may be regarded as their base about twenty miles below, does not 
exceed 1054 feet. This will leave 1114 feet for the height of that line 
above the sea, or 146 feet more than I had allowed for Morganton. 

But the surveys referred to were carried along the French Broad river, 
in the immediate vicinity of Ashville, and therefore afford a base, or start- 
ing point, from which all the heights in that region could be conveniently 
ascertained. Dr. Dickson having undertaken to observe the barometer at 
Ashville, and knowing that in his hands it would afford results in which 
confidence could be placed, I determined to try the Black once more, in 
which mountain I was well satisfied that the highest points are to be found, 
as I was, also, that I had never yet been upon the highest. 

The Black Mountain, as you well know, is a long curved ridge, 15 or 
20 miles in length, its base having somewhat the form of a common fish- 
hook, of which the extremity of the shank is near Thomas Young's, in 
Yancey. It sweeps round by the heads of the South fork of the Swan- 
nanoe^ Rim's Creek and Ivy, and ends at the Big Butt, or Yates's Knob — 
Caney river drains by a number of forks the hollow of the curve. The 
summit of the ridge is depressed at some points, and rises at others into 
peaks or knobs, 2, 3 or 400 feet higher than the rest, and it is a matter of 
considerable difficulty to determine before ascending which is the highest, 
as we cannot tell how much the apparent elevation is affected by the dis- 
tance of the different points. The general elevation of the ridge may be 
stated at 600 feet. The following are the heights measured, which are 
liiiely to have most interest for the readers of the Messenger. 

Feet. 

Ashville, 2200 

French Broad at Ashville, 1977 

Lower Ford of Pigeon, 2475 

Waynesville, 2722 

Head of Scott's Creek, 3240 

Tuckaseege Ford, 1927 

Cullywhee Gap, . . . . . . . 3397 



194 LETTERS FROM THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. 

Blue Ridgo head of Tnckaseege, 3795 

Col. Zachary's Cashier's Valley, .... 3324 

Chimney Top, . 4433 

Chimney Top above Zachary's, . . . . 1109 

Burnsville, 2763 

Top of Black, 6672 

Morganton, 1031 

Table Rock, . . . . . . . . 3584 

Grandfather, . . • 5719 

Roan, 6187 

It appears that the valley of the French Broad is a trough, or depres- 
sion, extending quite across the ^reat back-bone of the United States, hav- 
ing the parallel, but considerably higher valleys of the Nolachucky and 
Pigeon on its two sides. Ivy Ridge is the boundary of this valley on the 
north-east, the ford of Ivy creek, near Solomon Carters, having very nearly 
the height of Ashville. The difference of temperature and climate cor- 
responds to the indications of the barometer, grain and wild fruits ripening 
sooner about Ashville, than in the neighborhood of either Burnsville or 
Waynesville. At the ford of the Tuckaseege, on the road to Franklin, we 
are at the bottom of another deep and warm valley, but this does not, like 
that of the French Broad, extend across the whole range of the Allegha- 
nies. 

These measurements are not altogether without value, to the people of 
Haywood and Macon, showing as they do, what is the amount of obstacle 
that has to be overcome in carrying a road from Tennessee into South 
Carolina, along the Tuckaseege. Such a road should be made, or rather 
the existing one should be greatly improved, and the route altered in some 
places. There is likely to be a good deal of travel along it, but the gap in 
the Blue Ridge, where it is to pass, is about 1500 feet higher than that at 
the head of the French Broad. 

There are but two routes by which the highest peaks of the Black 
Mountains can be reached, without an amount of labor which few people 
are willing to undergo. One is by the head of Swanannoe. This brings 
us to a point a little higher than the top of the White Mountains in New 
Hampshire. The other is from the south fork of Tow. It is represented 
as quite practicable, and leads to the highest summit. 

Agriculliire. — The mountain counties, Ashe, Yancey, Buncombe, Hen- 



ADDENDA. 195 

derson, Haywood and IMacon, do not appear to have adopted fully those 
modes of culture which are the hest suited to their soil and climate, and 
which are likely ultimately to prevail. For this two reasons may be as- 
signed. 

1 . The great amount of travel, through the counties of Ashe, Hender- 
son and Buncombe, (but especially the two last,) between the Atlantic 
states and the West, has created a demand for the different kinds of grain, 
and given a direction to the industry of the population of those counties, 
wliich but for the circumstance mentioned, would be neither natural nor 
profitable. The roads have consumed all the corn that could be raised. 
The practice of the farmers living near the roads, which will answer very 
well for them, (especially if somewhat more attention be paid to the culti- 
vation of the grasses), may be expected to have an under influence in the 
remote parf s of those counties. 

2. The families by whom these counties were settled, were from below 
the ridge, and carried with them into the mountain region, the kind of hus- 
bandry to which they have been accustomed in the warmer and drier parts 
from which they came. It is only gradually that men change the habits 
and practices of their earlier days. This influence of custom is exhibited 
on the northernmost range of counties in North Carolina, along the Virginia 
line, where the culture of tobacco prevails much more extensively than a 
little farther south, where the soil is equally well adapted to the grov.'th of 
that noxious weed. 

The latitude and elevation — and of course the temperature of the 
mountain counties as far as it depends upon these two, are very nearly the 
same with those of ancient Arcadia — the country of herdsmen and shep- 
herds. Their soil is difl'erent, having been formed by the decomposition 
of primitive rocks — granite, gneiss and mica slate — whilst limestone 
abounds in Arcadia, as well as other parts of Greece. But it is to the 
raising of cattle and sheep and the making of butter and cheese for the 
counties below the ridge, that it may be expected there will be a tendency 
in the industry of the mountain region for many years. The quantity of 
rain falling there, is greater than in the eastern parts of the state, and 
luxuriant meadows of the most valuable grasses, but especially of timothy, 
may be easily formed. This is for winter food. But the summer pas- 
tures, too, are susceptible of great improvement. 

Whilst the Indians held possession of the country it was burnt over 
every year. The ilre destroyed the greater number of the young trees, 



196 LETTERS FROM THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. 

that were springing np, and the large ones remained thinly scattered, like 
the apple trees in an orchard with large open spaces between. In these, 
the different kinds of native vines and other wild plants, — pea vine, &c., 
contended for the mastery, and each prevailed and excluded the other ac- 
cording to the vigor of its growth. Macon county still exhibits in some 
parts the appearance which the whole back country of North Carolina 
may be supposed to have borne when the first settlements of the whites 
were made. But after the Indians had been removed and large quantities 
of stock were introduced, the cattle and horses lent their aid in this con- 
test of the different vegetable species and in favor of the worst kinds. 
They ate out and destroyed such as they found palatable and suitable for 
the nourishment of animals, whilst such as are worthless were permitted 
to grow and occupy the ground. In the mean time the annual firing of 
woods that had been practised by the Indians having ceased, bushes and 
small trees have overspread and shaded a large space that was formerly 
covered with herbage. For these two reasons, therefore, because th ^ best 
kinds of vegetables have been in a great measure eaten out, and destroyed, 
and because of the thickening of the forests, the range (even if the popu- 
lation were still the same) would be greatly inferior to what it was fifty 
years ago. 

It is necessary here as in other cases that the industry and ingenuity 
of man should come in to direct, and to some extent, control the operations 
of nature. The best grasses — best for pasturage, must be introduced and 
made to take the place of such as are worthless. The milk, butter, and 
cheese would be improved in quality as well as increased in quantity. As 
the wild onion, where eaten by cows, gives milk a flavor that is intolerable 
to some persons, so it may be expected that bitter and unpalatable weeds 
of every kind will give it a wild and savage taste ; that it will be inferior 
in purity and richness to such as is yielded where the sweetest and best 
grasses are the only food. It appeared to me as I rode down from the 
Flat Rock to Ashville that there were very extensive tracts in Henderson 
and in the southern part of Buncombe now almost waste and worthless, 
which would, in the course of a few years, be converted into artificial 
pastures ; not the most fertile in the world — but such as would amply re- 
pay an outlay of capital upon them ; that the marshes and low grounds 
would be drained, and rank timothy take the place of sedge and other coarse 
grasses that afford no nourishment. In the immediate neighborhood of the 
Flat Rock I saw that the good work had been begun and made a consider- 
able progress. 



ADDENDA. 197 

The sides of the mountains are too steep to be cleared and converted 
into pastures that will have any permanent value. The soil that is ex- 
posed would be washed away. But there are tracts, some of no inconsid- 
erable extent, and especially near the crest of the ridge and along the 
head springs of the western waters, where the surface is comparatively livid, 
the soil sufficiently moist and fertile, and where capital might be advanta- 
geously invested for the purpose of converting them into meadows and 
pastures. The tops of the mountains also, where the ridge is broad or a 
single summit has a rounded surface instead of a sharp peak, will afford a 
few grazing farms. I do not altogether despair of living to see the time 
when the highest summit of the Black shall be inclosed and covered with 
a fine coat of the richest grasses, and when the cheese of Yancey shall 
rival in the market of the lower counties that which is imported from other 
States. 

For accomplishing this a good deal of labor will be required. But the 
person to whom it has happened to visit Burnsville soon after it was fixed 
upon as the seat of Justice for Yancey county, and during the present year, 
will have good hopes of very rough and unsightly places. A more doleful 
spot than it was in the year 1834, cannot well be imagined ; and though 
there is ample room for improvement yet, it is not difficult to see that the 
time is near when there will be a range of meadows passing by and near 
it, alike productive and beautiful. 

If an inhabitant of the mountains shall be desirous of calling in the 
experience of other parts of our widely extended country for the purpose 
of directing his own labors, there is no section of the United States which 
he wo'\ld visit with more advantage than the genuine Yankee land — the 
New England States. The soil is to a great extent the same with his own, 
having been produced by the decomposition of primitive rocks ; elevation 
compensating for difference of latitude, there is a considerable similarity 
of climate. And if after seeing what the labor of two centuries has ac- 
complished there, he shall pass through the mountain region of North 
Carolina, whilst he will be pleased to see how much has been done in his 
own section, he will fix upon many spots that are now in a great measure 
neglected, as those which a patient industry will in the course of a few years 
render the most productive and valuable. Extensive tracts in Henderson 
county, the moist grounds inclining to swamp in the neighborhood of 
Waynesville, the valley of Scott's creek, bordering the road, the head waters 
of the Tuckaseege and those of the Savannah on the south side of the 



198 LETTERS FROM THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. 

Blue Ridge, are cited as examples because they fell under my immediate 
observation. 

Closely connected with agriculture as affording access to a market are 
good roads, and it was with some surprise that I noticed certain indications 
that the road scraper has never been introduced into the western part of 
the State, but that all the difficult passes in the mountains had been wrought 
out with the plough, the hoe, and shovel. The Warm Spring turnpike 
has inequalities, elevations and depressions, even between the village of 
Ashville and the point where it first comes into contact with the river, 
that would not be permitted to continue for a year if this excellent labor- 
saving instrument were once to come into use. For removing earth 
through short distances, for a hundred feet to a hundred yards, there is 
nothing comparable to it. A single man and horse will accomplish as 
much as six or eight men with the ordinary torJs. 

I am respectfully yours, 

E. MITCHELL. 

To Hon. T. L. Cling man. 



THE END. 



0' 9 6 6^ 



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